Monday, Monday

For this post I thought of following the fine example of The Bloggess, and calling it “Shit I Did When I Wasn’t Here” but I fear that the bulk of it would be items like:

• Stared blankly at the wall feeling completely overwhelmed and just ill-equipped for life in general

and

• Drove back and forth to the registry office three separate times on two different days to register for Albert healthcare, and finally getting it done OR SO I THOUGHT because I got a phone call this morning that a change the registry ladies nicely made and initialed ‘can not be rendered legally valid” and I have to re-do everything and go back AGAIN. This sort of thing drives me absolutely insane. We can’t do this online yet? Really? So back we go. To another twenty minute line in a sweltering building with a toddler. Yeeeeeah.

and

•  Had terse turf wars about my water glass with Olive. She had her own water, I had my own water. It was the same water. She, of course, did not want her own water, she wanted mine. And something inside of me just decided “You know what? No. NO. This is the line in the sand, Madeleine. It starts and ends here.” And that’s how I ended up having a ten minute battle where I said things I never in a million years thought I would have to say to another human being. Things like “I am allowed to have my own glass of water!” which was met, predictably, with tears of rage and deep sadness.The good news is that I won. (pause for applause)

 

The only REAL thing I’ve done since I wasn’t here was that I recorded a series of really fun videos for Beth over at I Am The Mama Mantra, for her Ask a Mama series. Click here to head over to her blog to see the first one!

I feel it necessary to add that this video took no less than twelve attempts to complete because I was doing it alone during naptime and couldn’t get the camera to focus on me because while I was trying to focus the camera I wasn’t sitting where I wanted the focus to be…if you catch my drift.

Eventually I used a cardboard box as a stand-in and that worked great – and at times I am convinced it may have done the job a little better. Nothing is more awkward than watching yourself on video. NOTHING. But I am so excited to be a part of this series, and am filming the final video today if the tyrant Olive sleeps long enough (please god please god I need this).

Some exciting things have happened that I, in a very mature way, am refusing to talk about out loud in case The Universe decides to punish me by enacting this very scientific thing called a “Jinx”. So I will leave this very cruel tantalizing hint about this VERY EXCITING THING and ask you all to cross your fingers and toes and anything else you are physically able to cross (?) for me.

Aaaand on one final sexy note, the giant pill case is BACK baby. Feast your eyes on this scrumptious decadence. I simply can not remember to take my pills unless they are in front of me, which I loathe because what’s better than a gigantic blue reminder that you’re sick, staring at you all the time? But these problems are small potatoes, and if this is what it takes to haul me out of the pit than so be it.

I also thought I would mention, for those who might also take medication and have small children, that although I keep my medication bottles out of Olive’s reach and I don’t give it to her to play with or anything, this pill-case is not child-proof and I have to carry it with me in my purse. I let her see me take my pills, and she knows it is “mummy’s medicine”. I show her the pills and I instruct her that the must never touch my medicine, and she repeats “Don’t touch. Medicine. Mummy”.

I think this is important because she might one day scale a medicine cabinet and defeat the childproof bottle, or find pills at a friends house, or, I don’t know, toddlers are resourceful little creatures! So while I obviously take every precaution to protect her, I also understand that the pill case looks fun, and the pills might look like candy. So rather than hiding the whole thing from her, I want to be sure that she knows exactly what it is, and what it’s for. This helps me because I feel very confident that she knows what to do if she finds medicine, and that I’ve prepared her for that possibility. Ok, PSA over!