Allisun's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 1/4/03 -------------------- 12/23/02 11/6/02 10/29/02 10/18/02 10/7/02 9/25/02 8/30/02 8/27/02 8/20/02 8/4/02 3/12/02 -------------------- Allisun's Introduction

October 29, 2002

16 months old

On Mondays my aunt comes to stay with Brandan, it's their day together, and it would take an entire diary just to recap their adventures. They've been to the jungle and hunted crocodiles and alligators. She taught him how to play football, how to make a pizza out of nature, how to set the table and crack eggs and how to build a village out of popsicle sticks. They play marbles and pick up sticks. They built an igloo and watched ladies with long red nails fish at the canal lift locks. She taught him to talk pilot-copilot lingo, how to write Happy Halloween and how to say thank you for a compliment. They paint and glue themselves incredible works of art and Dee Dee made it her mission to pique every ounce of Brandan's imagination. They plot and plan their adventures and when they come back I'm never sure who's more excited. I swear every family should have a Dee Dee.

We had a great weekend, we stuck close to home, got a lot done and scampered along united. When Monday morning showed up, Brandan, in the grip of togetherness, tried first to convince Remo he needed him to work, and when that didn't pan out, he saddled up to me with the hope we could make it a special day. He layed on the charm, then he got sappy and when all else failed, he got upset. He told me one day when he gets bigger he's going to go to work and Remo and I will have to stay home with Dee Dee. And he's going to make me eat things I don't rike AND he's going to waste all the tape and wrapping paper in the house. So there.

On Kaillan's first birthday I got my ears pierced so I would know how much it hurt before letting them at hers. Andree wanted it so badly but I was having a tough time committing. Before the woman pulled the trigger on mine, I decided Kaillan would be at least eight before she got a turn. She'd have to want it desperately and I stand by my decision today. I even feel good about it. I'm a grown-up wearing good gold earrings and I take care of my holes and still I get infections. But I had this problem of the miscombobulated ear lobe to deal with. Way back, 12 or 15 years ago, I forget exactly when, it was the season of big earrings and one kid too many had tugged on mine till it pulled through. So I made an appointment with a plastic surgeon to fix it all up.

I know what I thought would happen. I would turn up at the clinic and haul myself onto the table in one of the consulting rooms and the doctor would pull out some thread and fix my ear up and I'd be on my way. I showed up late to my appointment because of construction/parking chaos and I was frustrated out of my mind but terrified they'd nix my appointment. I got a look but they shuffled me into the office anyway where I had to pay $250 and it's not covered by insurance. Fine. They asked me to take off my coat and follow them into the operating room. Operating room! A real live one? We passed through recovery where there were two, I don't know how old, women with ice packs all over their faces and a little space to breath from and my stomach flopped. What was I doing? I got up on the table like they told me to and they pulled up my pant legs and strapped velcro something or other onto the legs I would've shaved. And I changed my mind. I've lived for how long with my earlobe not being perfect and nobody even really noticed, could I have my money back? The doctor never even noticed I was there and the nurse tsked me and they went back to discussing how Botox cures headaches. My palms were shiny clammy and my kneecaps were rattling when he told me he had finished the slice. How gross is that.

Twenty minutes later I walked out of there trying to check out my ear in the reflection of anything. They told me it would be frozen for another 3-4 hours. I raced home because both kids were at the babysitters and I could organize my life in a few hours. My aunt called me 4 hours later and I nitter nattered about how there must not be a lot of nerve endings in the ear lobe because it really didn't hurt much. Twenty minutes after that call I discovered that little ear lobe has four thousand nerves. It hurt and it looked pretty ugly too. I spent more time alcoholing and polysporining than mopping so I called Remo to say I'd go pick up the kids and then we should take them out to Montana's restaurant. It would be a test to see if the little live wire matured and we could slowly introduce her socially.

She may get her ears pierced first.

In fairness, we took too long going over the menu and that's fifteen minutes you can't take back. I had our restaurant bag of tricks, twice Remo took her out for a walk and it's a family restaurant with lots to look at, but none of it interested her as much as tearing around the place all by herself. She likes peekaboo with every stranger. She had on the running shoes Andree bought her, with lights that flash red whenever she walks. Somehow in that restaurant the lights looked like ten police cars and people were rearranging furniture to see them. Little did they know Kaillan would get to them soon enough. I felt bad for Brandan because he was so well behaved and she scoops up all the attention. On Saturday, we were going to do another grownup night, I think maybe we'll do a grown-up and older kids night and leave all the babies home. Bowling or the new Santa Clause movie, do you think it's too early for Santa Clause?

Remo's created a huge problem with Kaillan and no wife and mother in the living world would tolerate it. I am, without question, everything to Kaillan right now. If I'm in the room, she wants me to whisper sweet nothings in her ear and she has no problem if I do things, so long as 30% of our bodies are touching. I started relegating Remo to little tasks and with the little squirt as an assistant, so I could get something done in another room. I told you, she's a climber. What even I didn't know is that she climbs on top of the kitchen table and sits on her knees and putters. Lets say Remo was peeling carrots. She'd climb up on the chair, up on the table and sit there sorting out the carrots for half an hour. Whatever he was doing, reading the paper even, she had her spot. When I first saw it, saw how he was hardly even paying attention, I leapt across the room with my heart in my throat. He told me it's ok, she's fine, she's cautious, she scoots herself away from the edge and can judge where the chair is to get down. I said it's not fine. When Remo and Brandan were downstairs on the PBS internet website playing games, Kaillan was on the table. He can get her to eat anything on the table. I insist she is not a monkey and accidents happen and forget the responsibility issues, can you imagine if she went out in the world and pulled this stunt? The world would freak! As if the mess wasn't bad enough already, it used to be we had a hard time keeping her in her high chair, now we can't even get her in. She cries hysterically, arches back, and flops limp. Then she hauls her tempered self up and yanks over the chair and climbs onto the table. When I make it to Teenagers Today, you have to come back to coach me through it. I beg you.

Kaillan Mackenzie is a loveable, cuddly and funny girl and she will definitely hold her own in the world. Remo? He still needs to be trained. I forget what my other Remo problem was. I'll have to save it for next time.

It happened the weekend after we had friends over two days in a row and shipped the kids downstairs with the fathers. The men played foosball and the kids got into the craft bin. Three hundred thousand million sparkles were on every inch of everything. Stickers and felt marks and those craft sponge shapes, pom poms, feathers, pipe cleaners and play dough were mashed everywhere. Sparkles were right through the house, even in my washing machine. While the kids had to know they were crossing a line, I can't hold them responsible for the mess because when we're in a group, we're not actually down at their level, we're so busy socializing we lose track of things till someone cries. Sparkles won't sweep up by the way. I had made Brandan slave away with me and we discussed again the one toy at a time theory. We have bins for everything, they can play with anything in a bin so long as they put that stuff away before hauling out the next one. There are NO more crafts in the basement and I realized we have to be down there supervising better. When we do our annual New Year's party I decided I'm going to put all the grownups on shift work and I'm mixing up Mom's and Dad's. Brandan, who was aching tired and miserable had a better solution; he was just never having anybody over, ever again.

I spent a good portion of the last week of my life in our basement. As humbly as I possibly can, I have to say we have a great one because it's big and still new. Most of it is a massive playroom with the kids house and town house, slides, ball parks and as many Little Tike toys as a day care. If not more. In one room we have our corner store, although Remo insists it expanded into a grocery store (I'm a big time bulk buyer because it makes life for me easier) and in another room we have the Allie-mart. I start Christmas shopping in the summer when I hit sales, because it means I can get nicer things for what I would've spent anyway, and it gets me ahead on a list that's a mile long. I started this system back before we had thirty five kids in our life and our circle was smaller and slowly slowly it got out of hand. For a couple of months now, I've been opening up the door and tossing bags in with only mental notes in my head. But last week the door wouldn't open, there was so much stuff. I lost total track of who I'd already covered and for the ones I bought multiple gifts for, I couldn't give them all because too generous is a dangerous precedence setting path to take. So Brandan and I took eight hours over two and a half days and sorted it all out. I've already bought Easter gifts and the next season's birthday gifts. You can't imagine the friggan mess, 16 of those big hinged stacking bins packed full of stuff. I actually had a book to put notes in, and everytime Remo came down to see if I was done yet, I got a lecture on how I was giving away our trip to Disney land. And he's absolutely right. After this Christmas I'm changing everything. When we all had one child, I always bought the kids a great name brand outfit and a toy too. But I kept it up and now they have two or three kids. Then they reciprocate, then I do and tada! We're in a stressful circle. So as of next year, I'm starting a new system although I haven't figured it out yet. My real problem is I can't really do name draws since we happen to be in ten different family/close friend circles and there's people who don't have children and buy gifts for my kids so I buy for them too. I guess it's akward, but I'll have work with the parents to set a price limit per child and stick with it. Remo says we should just cut the entire gift giving business out, but it's impossible. What we can do is establish reasonable limits. And that'll have to kick off in the New Year because for 2002, my gifts are almost all bought and brace yourself, almost all wrapped. Sick eh?

On the one hand I'm very on top of things but on the other, I have quirks that would have to drive people nuts. This weekend the clocks were flipped back and I start the six months of the year where my watches are the right time. I never wore a watch till we bought me one on our honeymoon seven years ago and since then, unless I need to change the battery, I've never adjusted the time. It would take minutes out of my life but I never bothered because I never cared. For half a year I just add an hour. I don't think Remo even knows. I wonder if deep down it's just something I secretly want not to change, like never drinking a cup of coffee. If I have one, I'll never be able to never say it again. But can you imagine me with caffeine?

So now that my Christmas presents are pretty much taken care of (does it feel like I'm nose rubbing?), I'm back to scheming up some family fun. On Claudia's birthday, the fathers took the older kids to a Halloween craft workshop while us Mom's stayed home with the babies and made her a chocolate cake from scratch. It was great till the next day I ate half a triple layer cake with an entire cup of cocoa in it all by myself. One Friday night this month I'm going to invite a little pack of the 4-6 year old crowd over for pizza supper so we can make gingerbread houses, I figure it'll give the parents a shopping break. We're putting together a girl's night out and for sure we'll have holiday things coming.

Last night I started beginners golf lessons and I could see where one day when I have more time (yah right!) I'll be hooked. I'm glad I'm learning properly because I have the sort of mind that's impossible to undo. Food wise, I've been cooking up a storm. With two batches of cream of leek and two batches of cream of carrot (one with orange, one with sweet potato and ginger) soup in the freezer, I made sheppard's pies, fresh tomato sauce, harvest muffins, chocolate chip cookies and I got back into the crock pot scene. Does anybody have good crock pot recipes?

Oh and the real kicker in my life is I'm officially on a budget. I got into a dangerously delectable habit before the heavy mortgage kicked in with shopping on a whim and justifying every cause and Remo pulled the curtain. It happened during a Walmart run. He was double parked with sleeping kids and bank statements and I was on my last great rampage but I didn't even know it. I got back in the car to a quiet, calm statement about how we needed to tow the line. It brought me back to being a kid. My step-mother kept me grounded to my room with no privileges most of my life while my Dad tried to cushion the blow. He never punished me except for the one time I pulled a stole-the-car stunt, and he sat at the table in front of me and said quite simply he had never been so disappointed in anyone in his entire life. And nothing more. I was devastated and terribly sorry and I will remember that moment for the rest of my life. I got good then and I'll do it now too. Remo has no idea how much he's like my father, so many qualities I truly admire.

Frankly, I think I will never shut up. I guess that's why I'll be turning off my Toddlers Today diary and moving over to Mom's Today. I feel bad because I spend so much time here talking about me, and while I could easily spend hours of my time explaining to you every move Kaillan makes, every food she's interested in today, I have to be very honest in that I can't see that it would be particularly interesting to you. I find I naturally write more about me, about my life as a mom today. I'll let you know when the move is for real. Could ya, would ya come with us?

That's it for now, I owe Alicia and Amy F replies and there's a whole whack of diaries I wanted to pop into. Oh speaking of that, I forgot to send a big warm welcome to my girlfriend, Danielle just started a diary over on Special Kid's Today. Won't be but a minute before she discovers what an amazing community this is, what an incredible support you are. I say this with my best Tony the Tiger impression. You guys are GREAT!

BOO to all of you! Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Allisun