Such a mom
Grandma and Grandpa are going to Hawaii with us! We’re all very excited, but it’s made me reassess our accommodations and I thought I’d ask your advice. We have three options – all of which are about the same price, surprisingly. The first is a condo just a walk from the beach. It’s really nice looking with a great kitchen (two – one inside and one out) and it has a sliding door that opens the lanai to the living room. Aside from the beach, the bonus is a kids pool at the complex. Downside? It’s a condo and I think it’s not a great value.
The second is an actual house with a pool. Brand new, with an ocean view and nice kitchen (as if I cook – but my dad does, so that’s why it’s on the list). Downside? It has a pool. Love the idea of it, but I have an active toddler. Upside? It has a pool. You understand the dilemma. It’s also a drive to a sandy beach.
The third is a very unique hotel. It’s actually a ranch, with horses and everything. The accommodations are restored cottages, with every amenity (including daily maid service, which I sort of need). Some have plunge pools. Very nice. Downside? While there is a view of the ocean, the ocean is a ways away, which means we would need to drive to the beach. Thoughts?
Earth Day Adventure
Earth Day isn’t all about the gifts we receive, it’s about what we give back. To celebrate this, I put Oscar to work. Since I signed my fourth deal in 10 days (a new record) last night, I decided to take the day off. I also decided that I wasn’t going to clean up my home office on my own – I was going to make my child do it. He’s almost two, and he’s been slacking since the day I met him. So, off we went to pick up all of the draft merger agreements I had lying around. Oscar helped put them all into the recycling bin, and even tried to up the ante by adding anything else he could find, including opening remotes and trying to dump batteries into the bin. We’ll save that lesson for a future Earth Day.
Following our trip to the recycling bin, we did some gardening, mostly so I would have something to throw into the compost bin. That’s the big green bin the garbage people give you. Apparently you’re supposed to fill these things up every week with compostibles (whatever those are). We chucked in some yard waste and decided to end this phase of the day. I had considered planting a tree or something, but c’mon, let’s save a little for when the kid is a little older.
Now that we had warmed up, we kicked things into high gear. Oscar and I headed to the beach! It was a perfect day, so how better to spend it than hanging out in the sand, exposing our pale skin to the harsh sun, whose rays are even more damaging as a result of this “global warming” thing people say exists. Whatever, we loaded up the Prius and headed out. Wait, you know I’m joking. Who would drive on Earth Day? We got on the bus and headed to the beach. Kidding again, you know I don’t do mass transit (at least not with the kid and not on a bus). How better to celebrate Earth Day than to hop in our gas guzzling SUV? Well, we got to the beach, but I apparently picked the wrong one. Lots of sand erosion so it was one of those kind of dirty beaches. Not what I was looking for, so we went to the zoo. I know you’re getting bored with this, but Oscar is still into it, so we drove down the street to the zoo. We’re really working that membership lately. Oscar had a blast, and afterwards we went to lunch at Louis (a divey diner with a great view and Oscar’s all-time favorite minestrone, which he screeched for when he finished his entire bowl). After that we topped off the day with a trip to T@rget and a drive home eating Ore0s. A perfect day.
He was into this, but annoyed that I interrupted him.
Happy Earth Day
Happy Earth Day, everyone! Like all of you, we have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Earth Day in our house. Little Oscar has practically been vibrating with excitement ever since we put up our Earth Day bush, a “reclaimed” potted plant decorated with recycled tin foil, but without lights (simply not green to waste electricity in that manner), just giddy in anticipation for his first visit from Mother Nature. Well, she did not disappoint.
When Oscar awoke, he was greeted with his Earth Day presents, all placed in one of our recycled shopping bags (you know the ones you buy at Whole F00ds and always forget to take back to the store, so you end up having to ask for paper bags and the clerk looks at you in disgust? one of those). Mother Nature does not wrap gifts with packaging materials and wrapping paper – let alone tape! I think he was amazed at the bounty. In the bag were many pieces of organic fruit (she selected the fruit that was just about to go bad and have to be disposed of - do you have any idea how many tons of fruit is thrown out at grocery stores every year?), candy bought in bulk, and a t-shirt that says “solar power turns me on.” Just kidding about that last one – the t-shirt was for me. Since none of the slightly rotting fruit or candy was wrapped, it got a bit tossed together and made this really special melange that only a toddler could love. Yummy.
In addition to all of his organic fruit and candy, Oscar was surprised with “new” toys and books. Why buy new toys – even “green” toys when you can simply reuse the ones you’ve cast aside? Especially the dog-earred books. It’s all about recycle – reduce – reuse, people! In addition to a number of toys he never really liked last year, he received my old cell phone, an empty macaroni & cheese box, a bunch of pens that are almost out of ink and a big stack of paper out of one of our recycling bins at work. The non-printed side is a great medium for his artwork (aka scribbling). We’re going to spend some time playing with his new stuff, and then our Earth Day adventures begin in earnest. We’ll update you later on the fun we’re having.
ETA: in all of our earth day excitement, we couldn’t actually post until tonight. You know how crazy the major holidays are.
Neuro news
I had a video conference with another neurologist from Baltimore the other day. I keep getting a lot of information on Oscar’s condition. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really shed any light on what this condition means to him going forward. The somewhat interesting news is that it does not seem to be the case at all that a person’s corpus callosum stops developing at birth. The other interesting news is that his doctors have a theory about what could have caused his “issue.” I don’t call it a problem.
From what I’ve been told by three neurologists now, there is a good chance that Oscar’s issue with his corpus callosum could have been caused by lack of attention in the orphanage. There are apparently a number of studies that have shown that the corpus callosum (callosa?) of kids who have been neglected or abused significantly atrophy over time. I’ve written about the state he was in when I adopted Oscar, but I’m not sure I would necessarily call what he went through “neglect” or “abuse.” I doubt he was coddled, but what the doctors have tried to make me see is that lack of attention to the point that his poor little head flattened out like it did could be the culprit here. Ultimately, I don’t know that what caused this situation is all that relevant. It happened. It’s over. Move on. Well, I would like to be that mature about it, but I’m not. In addition, it is somewhat relevant, in that if this was the cause, it’s a somewhat helpful fact, as a lot of kids with this condition have it because of other organic issues (just imagine all of those brain maladies that you read about while pregnant or waiting for your adopted child – that’s what else there could be). Oscar doesn’t have any of those, so they’re looking at this as a possible explanation. Who knows.
What I do think is relevant that there is also a study that showed that the corpus callosa of a number of six year olds who played piano for 2.5+ hours a week grew significantly. That, to me, is important. I just need to figure out how to grow this tiny little part of his brain. Playing the piano seems a bit like torture, but if it helps, Oscar is going to be getting a piano for his third birthday (starting him now seems premature). Why wait until he’s six?
Choices
I just got back from the salon. It was my first trip there since early January. I color my hair, so three months is far too long. I honestly had at least two inches of roots showing. Not a great look. Think Madonna without the freakishly toned body. Between work and Oscar, though, coloring my hair simply is no longer a priority. It used to be the case that I would get my hair done every five weeks. Now, it’s more like 14 weeks if I’m lucky. And I’m usually not lucky.
Case in point – today. I get to the salon, get the process started at 1:00 only to find out midway that I have a conference call scheduled for 4:00. In addition to getting my roots done, my objective for the afternoon was to get my hair trimmed (my bangs are at that stage where they hit exactly below my eyes, which drives me insane) and get to the pharmacy to pick up my much needed drugs. Since my mental health seemed more important at the time, I chose to forgo the haircut in the hopes that I could get to the pharmacy. No such luck, my friends, somehow it took three hours for my hair to be colored and for me to drive the half hour to my office. Insane. Now my hair is half-done and I still need to get to the pharmacy.
I think I used to take this ability to get things done for granted. As if I was always going to be well-groomed (or well enough at least) and have my basic needs met. What was I thinking? I’ve written before about the luxuries in life that I’m doing without, but I’m thinking this goes beyond not having a pedicure for eight months. Walking around the office with Madonna hair is not exactly confidence-inspiring. For those of you who manage to keep it together, even if it’s just barely, how do you do it? Do you drag your kids to these appointments and while you do your errands?
The shame
Okay, it’s become clear to me that perhaps I was a bit lax on my Easter bunny duties. “Lax” meaning entirely incompetent. Honestly, I didn’t even give it a thought. I was working all week, including 18 hours on Saturday and we had technically gone to an Easter egg hunt the week before (big mistake), so I didn’t really think the whole bunny and candy thing was a big deal.
Imagine my surprise this morning when I was deluged by email messages attaching adorable photos of cute little kids Oscar’s age (and YOUNGER) in their beautiful Easter attire with their perfectly adorned (and stuffed) baskets full of toys and candy. I didn’t even know that the bunny is supposed to visit your house like Santa does, let alone give the poor kid candy. I mean, I did drive through McDon@ld’s yesterday while Oscar was napping after the zoo and buy some chocolate chip cookies, but I’m going to go ahead and guess that doesn’t count. One of my secretaries even tried to make me feel better by saying Oscar wouldn’t even remember this (implying that it would have been a huge mistake had been a little older). Jeez, I figured the whole Easter day thing was a bigger deal for kids a little older, who could appreciate dying eggs and what not. I learned my lesson, though. I vow to take holidays more seriously. I am going to rock Earth Day like you’ve never seen. Game on, people. Game on.
A happy Easter
We managed to make it to the zoo for the second weekend in a row, and guess what happened? Oscar had fun again. This time he not only approached the animals, but he also approached two groups of older boys. He even let two push him around on the tractor after they told him he shouldn’t just sit there steering. And then he got uppity with me when I didn’t let him watch the carousel long enough. Who is this child? Two months ago I had to beg him to hang at the Discovery Museum. Sorry for the horrible photo, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the long list of victims of his destructive ways. Will have to replace the camera, since my hope that it would heal itself seems to have been in vain.
No white sand beaches
Well, folks, there will be no white sand beaches for Oscar and me. Turns out it will take at least 13 hours each way (and more likely 20 hours on the return) to get to the Caribbean from here. I could have sworn I found flights that were only (ONLY) 10 hours last week when I was daydreaming about this. Alas, that is not the case. No big loss, though. No hurricanes where we’re going, just a big old volcano. And the bonus? Only 5+ hours of Oscar sitting on my lap on our flight paid for with miles. Sweet.
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
