All the Crazies DON"T live in Texas...

There are a lot of interesting people living in the ABQ. I had the pleasure of being entertained by one during my dental cleaning today.

Jamie found this dentist, and went himself a few months ago. I don't remember him remarking on the hygienist, even though the same lady cleaned our teeth. And she remembered Jamie... This lady was really nice, friendly, did a good job on my teeth, and was a TOTAL nut job. Let me say that after my encounter today, I understand my (and everyone else's, for that matter) horoscope much better.

So they new I was pregnant b/c I had to fill that out on the paperwork so they wouldn't take X-rays. Not sure they really need X-rays with this woman's psychic powers, but I get ahead of myself. She asks when I'm due; I tell her November. She asks, the Scorpio or Sagitarrius side of November? I'm like, Oh Hell. People who know me know I'm not into this sort of thing at all. I'm not into Fate, Destiny, Signs, Nostradamus, none of that crap. So I tell her I'm due the 14th, and she's like, that's Scorpio, that kid's gonna challenge you. Super. Then she says, you're a Taurus right? OMG, she remembers Jamie is a Taurus! So I tell her No, Cancer. She gets really excited at this b/c she's a Cancer. She explains how we're the "Mothers" of the Zodiac and we're shy and we're really particular about our homes. Hmm... Then she explains how the USA, Canada and the UK are also Cancers and how the Zodiac predicted the economic downturn when Pluto or Venus or somebody invaded Cancer's house (some of that may have gotten lost in translation). She says, so you see, the Zodiac can predict some stuff. Wow. It's pretty easy not to laugh when someone has two hands and a pointy, scrapy object in your mouth, but I had to try real hard.

She had lots of other anecdotes on the Zodiac, but I can't remember them all, and some were kind of sad. Once she said the bit on the US's horoscope and the recession I was trying SO hard to remember that so I could share, that I've forgotten the rest. She was a gem. I'm looking forward to my next appt on 10/01.

Potty Parade

We're in potty training mode. Not full bore yet, but it's coming, as soon as we can get back into a routine (i.e. Daddy not traveling and Mama not feeling like poo-poo). For Easter Jordan is getting potty paraphernalia, like panties and stickers and training pants. Real festive, I know.

So Jo and I went to buy a second potty yesterday since we have a 2-story house. It's adorable, it's a frog like her other potty. Not sure why frogs and potties are a thing... For the past few days she's been sitting on her potty for a good stretch, reading books, etc. But not going potty. We've been telling her she has to use the potty if she wants to go to school. Which is true; the preschool requires her to at least be well on her way. So when she sits on the pot, she says "I go potty so I can go to school and sit in chairs and paint". This is what she did when we checked out the school. Like two months ago.

Yesterday afternoon we set up the new potty upstairs to try out, and I thought "this is why it was on clearance." Jo immediately said the potty gave her a boo-boo butt. The seat is hard plastic, and her other potty has a squishy seat. There's also a kind of pee shield in the front, which makes her sit with her legs apart. But she kept sitting on it, taking breaks to run around, get new books, look at her butt in the mirror (a new interest of hers), ask Mama to give her pig-tails, look at her pig-tails in the mirror, yadda yadda yadda. Then I heard something, we looked at each other, and she shrieked "I went pee pee in the potty!!" She was SO proud of herself. The next breath she started saying "I go to school now, I go to school now, let's go. Let's go Mama." Uh-oh.

Luckily I had stickers for reward and that distracted her. That was right before naptime. I told her when she woke up from her nap, to call for me to help her use her potty before she peed in her diaper. Sure enough, I hear her call me later that afternoon "Mama I need to go potty!" Of course, she'd already gone. But it was still a good sign. She bragged about her potty success to Nana on the phone and to Daddy when he came home. And then she went again for Daddy right before bed! And said "I go potty, now I go to school!"

Family News

A picture is worth a thousand words, but my scanner isn't working, so I can't share the visual, not that you could tell much from it anyway.... But we're expecting a baby! We saw the heartbeat today, and all is looking well. We're due mid-November, so we're not too far along yet. We haven't tried explaining this to Jordan, and will probably hold off until she starts to notice Mama looking funny. We're going to let the sex be a surprise this time around. I think I'll have a biased opinion on what it'll be based on how I feel this time compared to how I felt with Jo. But I am looking forward to a surprise :-)

Happy St. Patty's

Jordan and I had a very green St. Patty's day at the Botanic Garden and Aquarium with our library friends. Everything is growing right now. I think in another 2 weeks or so the gardens will really be a cool place to spend the morning. Spring Break in ABQ is next week, but you wouldn't have known it from the hordes of kids that showed up by the busloads today. All of us moms kind of looked at each other like, oh hell.

Anyway, Jo was really excited to see the fish, and kept pulling me through the aquarium until we got to the sharks "Come on Mama, Come on Mama, sharks, sharks, sharks". Once we got to the sharks, she wanted to leave. She did pause long enough to see the "petting" aquarium. They had a tank set up with little crabs and urchins and other critters that they would bring up so you could touch their shells. It was pretty cool, they've never had that before when we've gone. So maybe it did pay to go on national field trip day.

I think Jo was in such a rush in the aquarium because what she was REALLY excited about was the picnic lunch. I told her last night what we'd be doing the next day, and "pic-a-nic" is what she talked about when I put her to bed and when she got up in the morning. She wanted to make sure that I had packed the blanket. I guess it's just not a picnic without a blanket. Unfortunately they had completely soaked the big open lawn in the gardens, so we had to use our blanket on the paved part, but that was OK with Jo. When I put her down for bed tonight she talked about her picnic and what she ate.

After we got home, and after Jo's fake nap in the car and her hour-long refusal to take a real nap in the crib, we played in the backyard. I broke down and gave her her Easter present today: a green flowered watering can. She LOVES it. I've told her that you use it to water plants so they grow, and "grow" is the verb that stuck, not "water". So she went around watering the same two flowered pots saying "I grow it, I grow it". She was pretty intense about the watering, going back and forth between each pot. I pointed her to some other plants and she watered those, sloshing water as she walked because she's not strong enough to hold the pail with one hand.

So we had green thumbs instead of green beer for St. Pat's this year. It was a good day.

Will I float or sink?

One of the nice things about Albuquerque is it's parks and recreation amenities. So I decided it was long overdue for me to take up swimming again. I have no excuses: the pool is close, it's indoors, and they have early morning lap swim so I can go on Jamie's non-running day before he leaves for work.

So I dug out my swim gear, thankful that my suit A) had not disintegrated, and B) still fit (kind of....close enough, suits are supposed to be tight, right?). Despite the sound of rain hitting the skylights and what could have been a lazy morning in bed (Jo slept in until 7:45!!), I went to the pool this morning.

There's lots of old folks in the ABQ, and this morning's crowd did not disappoint. But they out-swam me :-) After 4 laps my arms felt like lead, my feet threatened to cramp, and I wanted my kick board. I had a good time though. I only had to share the lane with one other guy, and he only hit me a few times, and never in the face. And nobody stole my stuff from the locker-free locker room (?). So it was a success. When Jamie gets back from traveling next week I'll try again. Maybe I'll get past a mile...

Doctors

I think I've taken up every parent's wish: maybe my kid will grow up to be a doctor. While I don't want to have to pay to put Jordan thru medical school, it's a fun dream. And Jordan is really into doctors lately. She likes to tell us to open wide and shine a little flashlight in our mouths.

She went in for her first dental cleaning a few months ago, and she LIKED it. She still talks about it. When they laid her back on the cleaning chair, and the bright light shined in her face, and she heard the electric toothbrush kick on, she looked mildly panicked. But I told her it was a tickle toothbrush and it was going to tickle her teeth, and then it was all fun and games. She remembers everything: she remembers the dentist counted her teeth, she remembers writing with the purple doodle sketcher (yes, she remembers it was purple), and she remembers she had to lay down.

Apparently she also really remembers the blue nitrile gloves the hygienist wore, because she went with me to an appointment yesterday, and they gave her a blue glove to play with, and she kept putting it on and saying she was a dentist. I asked her if she remembers what they did to Mama (I'd had blood drawn), and she said "They gave Mama a shock (shot) and got mud (blood)." Then she laughs and laughs. Hmm...maybe she shouldn't be a doctor.

Time to get back to it

So I see it's been since mid-September since I last posted. Hmm....I didn't mean to putz out, but I got preoccupied with the house, Paris, holidays, and I have no excuses since the new year.

Nana and Pa just headed back home after a nice 2-week visit. The Albuquerque winter has been unusually mild, and we've been having warm weather, if not windy and full of pollen. So much for escaping Cedar Fever.

With my mom here, Jamie and I were free to do some hiking with my dad. The original plan was to go ski in Santa Fe, but with the weather has being so warm we were worried about ice. So the first weekend we hiked in the southern part of the Sandia's one morning, doing the Three Gun Spring Trail. Dad and I gave up when the trail started to head back downhill, which was a mistake. Jamie said the top part was awesome and we missed out. Of course, Jamie had to run the last two miles of the trail, hardly able to stand hanging with us slower people.

Later that week we went to the zoo and met up with some mom-daughter friends from the library. Jordan got a lot more out of it this time, being much more interested in the animals. We got to see them feed the seals and seal lions and hear them bark. And the Siamangs, which are like Gibbons, were all riled up and whooping. You could hear them through the whole park. This must have made a huge impression on Jo b/c when she talks about the zoo, she whoops like the monkeys :-) It was a nice morning and we all enjoyed a picnic lunch after some playtime at the much-coveted zoo playground.


Dad and I did another hike on our own during the week, this time the Embudo Trail, which we finished. It was a lot steeper than the last one, and you had to crawl through a dry waterfall area made up of huge granite boulders. So that was pretty cool. We got done just in time as the winds had started up. I just can't get used to this wind....


Saturday we had our ABQ friends over and cooked a big turkey dinner. I figured with such a large crowd it was a good excuse to cook the turkey that's been squatting in my freezer and taking up space, as well as to cook other stuff I wouldn't dare make without several extra mouths to help me eat it (like cheesecake). Sunday afternoon we went for our last hike. A friend had strongly recommended Tent Rocks, which is about an hour away. None of us had ever heard of it before. It was amazing! You hike through a really tight canyon that's been eroded away by water and wind. In some places the canyon bottom is only a few inches wide. In other places, hard rock sits above soft rock, causing the soft rock to erode away teepee-style, hence the name Tent Rocks. I got some really cool pictures. It would be awesome to go at dawn or sunset when everything changes colors. Naturally, they're closed at those times.

The last "vacation-y" thing we did was take Jo to the jumping gym. I think this must be her favorite place in the whole world. We told her the day before that we were going, and she talked about it until we went, and then gave us the highlights once we got back. She's gotten really good at recalling her day and reciting it back to you. She likes to do this at naptime and bedtime. So she had fun boing-boinging, chasing me through the obstacle courses, and riding the slides (which she's still too chicken to do by herself).