The great Texas heat wave of 2011 (or why I am melting)

Dear Texas,
I love you. I really do. I love how the landscape changes throughout the state. I love how you have beaches, hills and mountains, rivers and lakes, sand hills and green pine forests all in the same state. I love how proud Texans are, how people are generally nice to women with children and try to help them exit a plane instead of cutting them off. I love that the cost of living is a lot less here. Sure, I have issues (well, tons and tons of issues) with the conservative, Christian agenda that seems to want to keep people (especially immigrants and women) poor, unhealthy, uneducated and pregnant. But in general, this is a nice place to be.

I do, however, have some complaints about this weather you're giving us. I know summer in Texas is hot. That's to be expected. We don't have a Boston winter where it's too cold and snowy to be able to do anything, but we do have a summer so hot you also really can't go out and do anything. I accept that. I am just not so keen on this 110 degree business though. If I wanted that, I'd move to Arizona where at least it's cool at night. And I know it's dry here generally, but I need a little more change of scenery beyond sunny and hot with a chance of clouds for three months. I need at least a good hail storm or severe thunderstorm to make up for the monotony.

It's so hot that it's too hot to swim even. It's hotter than swimming in a bathtub. It's like swimming in a hot tub. It's not even refreshing unless you do it at 10 p.m. and there's a cool breeze.

I will no doubt look back on this wistfully in January when there is an inch of ice on the ground, but I would willingly trade one for the other. Now, how do we go about changing some of this? Do you need a good rain dance? A cloud dance? Vodka? Brie? The new Chelsea Handler book? You name it.

Thanks, Texas. Love ya!

-Katherine

Tube top weather

After two weeks with consecutive ice storms, this week has turned out to be gorgeous. High temperatures in the 70s, partly cloudy and breezy. Hard to argue with that. The water in the pool is probably still 40 degrees, but it's warm enough that I'm thinking of a time where I might actually get to use the back yard again. Jubilee!

Meanwhile, in rant mode here, what's with Texas's crazy conservatives these days? I find some of this stuff just absurd. So they don't want kids to have access to information on preventing pregnancy in schools and they don't want kids to have access to family planning clinics outside of school and they want to take away access to abortions.

It seems their only advice is "don't do it," but when that fails (because it will), then they want kids to also have babies, thus likely limiting their educational and financial prospects. It seems to me the best way to avoid abortions is to teach kids how to NOT get pregnant in the first place. This is going to turn me into an activist, I'm afraid.

Super Bowl/Winter XLV

Hey, did you hear, the Super Bowl was in Dallas this year? I know, right? Who knew that? It also managed to coincide with the worst winter storm that's hit the area since the local TV station started covering meteorology in 1989. So that was last week, complete with four missed days of school. Cue this week and we had another, albeit more minor, ice storm that led to another missed day of school yesterday. My current work from home situation is handy for days like that in that I'm set up to do work already and can target special Yo Gabba Gabba sessions for times when I have a conference call. What's less than handy is having everyone home and in my space.

We are truly lucky to have a great neighborhood though. Last week and yesterday, we called each other to let the kids take turns playing with each other and our respective houses to give each other a break and keep the kids busy. I knew Southlake had a good community and was really family oriented and in this respect, it's absolutely true. We picked right and it's so far been pretty awesome.

Several dramatic things have been happening in the kids' lives. Andy has had his first break-up with a girl. That's right, he's six, but his school girlfriend gave him a talk last week about how she wanted Bart (Andy's BFF) to be her boyfriend instead. It was rather crushing for the little guy. He's clearly not really emotionally sophisticated to get all of this, but he likes her and doesn't really get it, especially when the break up means she and her new boyfriend can play blocks together and he can't. I'm trying to be cool, but it's hard to see his feelings hurt.

On a positive note, this kid is really putting the pieces to reading together. My children's author crush on Mo Willems continues as we love reading the Elephant and Piggie books. I didn't really get them before, but now that he's reading them to me, they're actually pretty clever and far, far better than most of the other early readers out there. If you have other favorites, bring 'em on. I need variety.

Margaret is also growing leaps and bounds. She's a bootiful princess and prides herself on getting dressed by herself (some days) and wearing a variety of shoes, dresses and hair accessories. It's adorable.

Both kids are getting into bike riding, which is awesome except for the subfreezing temperatures here. Andy has a bike with training wheels and we love riding the figure-eight of our block around and around. He's got the training wheels on still, but I love to watch it. Plus, I get some exercise myself and I tote Meg in the bike trailer and we ride with him. I just love that.

Hurricane Hermine

So, um, it's been raining in Southlake the last 24 hours thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Hermine. The smaller bridge is the view from my driveway. Normally, it's a steep little hill walking down to the bridge that you can see is partially under water. This was after it stopped raining around 12:30 p.m. About an hour before, it was even higher. The other is a view of White's Chapel Bridge that I stole from the City of Southlake's Facebook page. I'd say it's closed for now.

I have been impressed with the emergency response though. They have sirens available that they used in some parts of the city. I even got an auto call from city warning me of street closures around the city. Well done, city of Southlake.

Neighbors are telling me that this is the highest they've ever seen it. I think they meant that as reassurance, but it did not make me feel confident that my pool wouldn't overflow and the creek wouldn't climb up the hills into my bedroom. I'm so glad we arrived in Texas for the hottest summer and rainiest fall after the snowiest winter in Washington. Yay me! (Sure, it's all about global warming, but it's hard not to take it personally).

Teeth

It's official -- Meg has teeth. Two little clearish nubs are just poking through her bottom gums. I am excited and surprisingly melancholy that my little baby is growing up. Andy is thrilled about it though. He made a point to cheer her on, "Good baby! You're so good at growing teeth!" That just about killed me, too, it was so damn cute.

Meanwhile, I got a shout-out over from DC Blogs for my Hanna pictures. I am quite the celebrity, obviously. We went over to check out the lake yesterday after school and Andy and I were both amazed that all the water is gone now. What remains is mulch in weird places, a washed out walking path and mud everywhere. The mud line in the trees is about 15 feet high so you can see where the water went.

Andy was very happy that the water had gone down. The night before, he had a whole plan of how he would build a bulldozer to build a tunnel to get all the water to go away. He was quite serious about it. Bjorn and I were both impressed that he intended to build a bulldozer.

Tropical Storm Hanna

Did I mention it rained a lot yesterday?

Seriously?

It's barely September and the fall/winter illnesses are swirling through my house like it's Halloween and we've got the good candy. Last week, I got home from an event Thursday night feeling a little feverish and weird so I took two Benadryl and went to bed. Then in the morning my throat hurt a little, but by rotating Tylenol and Advil all day, I felt okay. By yesterday morning, my lymph nodes hurt like they did last year when I had strep. So I was smart, called my GP and had him call in a prescription for antibiotics. Let's hope that does the trick.

Andy had his first gymnastics class yesterday. There are two little girls in the class and they spent time jumping on the trampoline, jumping on the springboard, walking on the balance beam and doing a mini-Ninja Warrior course. It was all quite cute. He even got TWO hand stamps on the way out. He was rather pumped about that.

Not cute was the fever he spiked around lunch time. He simply fell asleep on the sofa around 12:30, unheard of for him to do that really. Bjorn carried him upstairs and Andy napped for a couple of hours. He woke up groggy and I think the only reason he did was he peed through his Pull-up and he was wet. All afternoon he just wasn't quite himself. Around 8ish, we negotiated how many more minutes he wanted to play. His answer "One hundred!" My answer, "Five." We settled on 10, but about two minutes in, he said he was tired so I took him up to bed. Also unheard of.

Meg has been a little warm off and on all weekend although Bjorn and I disagree on what constitutes warm and he's always telling me after the fact that he gave her a little Tylenol. I definitely think her teeth are coming in although I still don't feel anything.

Meanwhile, I'm pissed about this whole series of illnesses. I have really been trying hard -- I've been wiping toys and counters down with antibacterial wipes, toys are going in the dishwasher 100 percent more (i.e. I didn't do it at all before), I'm making a real effort to make sure I wash my hands every time I could some close to handling a bottle, food, a diaper or helping Andy in the bathroom. I'm also really working with Andy making sure he washes his hands more often. So explain to me why despite all this, everyone is still sick? I feel sort of like George Costanza - do I need to do the opposite of what I think is right and then everything will be fine? Any of you parenting veterans have any advice?

Oh, and to top off the weirdness of the weekend, we got 9 inches of rain in Fairfax yesterday as Tropical Storm Hanna blew threw the area, closing a number of the roads near us with low-lying creeks. I took some pictures of the creek near us. It was pretty cool.

Sick

Okay, so I've been working on keeping Meg and Andy healthy. Fingers crossed, we made it through the week. What sucks is now I'm sick. I am not sure how that happened what with operation hand sanitizer and all, but I felt crummy last night with fatigue and a sore throat only to keep waking up feeling cold with fever and chills. I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another.

I think Meg is getting her first tooth. No actual teeth yet by touch even (when she lets me rub her gums and when I make sure I've really, really washed my hands), but her bottom gums are whiter than normal and she's been a little cranky. Course, cranky could be for a host of reasons. I think she's getting a little separation anxiety when I leave the room. I think she has also discovered that crying=attention. She's no fool.

We're under a tropical storm watch this weekend with the remnants of Hurricane Hanna headed to the D.C. area. As a weather junkie, I love it. I also love that Bjorn's football games he's reffing will likely be rained out since we have a ton to do this weekend including Andy's first gymnastics class, a baptism, a community fun day (that also may get rained out) and two parties.

Ugh

So the first day back at work was today. I was a nervous nelly all weekend (not that I like to obsess or anything) only to wake up at 5 a.m. to both kids awake and wanting to play. I fed Meg and let her talk herself back to sleep in her crib and let Andy "read" with his light on so I could sort of sleep from 6:15 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. All that combined made me a little emotional. Andy was great at the drop off. He was a little shy, but went into his room without crying. Meg did well, too, although she did give me a little frown as if to say, "Why are you doing this?" Thanks, kid.

I jumped right into work, which was good to keep me from obsessing some more except for everyone asking me how I was doing. I know people mean well, but it made it an effort not to cry. I checked in around noon and Meg had slept and was drinking a bottle and Andy was in new clothes, having had a poopy accident that morning. I left work around 3:00 p.m., delighted that it took me only 15 minutes to get to their school. Andy was just up from not taking a nap and having a snack. He whined that he didn't want to leave, that he wanted to play. Bugger. Meg was also peacefully asleep in her crib. Her teachers reported that she was a great baby and very happy with no crying. Oh, and that she was really cute, too.

Once home, Andy went upstairs to rest and promptly fell asleep giving me some time with Meg. She's just cuter, more alert and interactive every day. It's sure hard to leave them every day, but I'll admit I liked the break and talking with adults. I may think differently when things get super busy in a few weeks, but today was a decent day.

In other news, it rained 7 inches at Dulles Airport yesterday and the area is just one big wet, sloppy kiss. This is on top of four inches of rain we got last week. Lots of folks lost power due to tree roots loosening and falling onto power lines and there is a ton of flooding that caused many schools to close. Wacky.

Religion may make you sick

We went to meet with the pastor yesterday at the Methodist church to talk about Meg's baptism. We're very occasional churchgoers, but it seems that baptism is one of those things that you need to do for your kids. We had a 5:30 p.m. appointment at St. Stephen's so all four of us went. Meg had been a bit fussy in the afternoon. She needed a nap, but had trouble settling down so she was a little cranky when we got there.

As we sat down, the pastor was going over the vows of baptism, basically saying that as adults bringing a child for baptism, we needed to commit to bringing out kids to church. I gave my excuses and he was kind about it, and then explained that with kids, there is almost always a good reason not to do it and if you keep up with that, that suddenly the children are grown and you realize you never took them to church. He gave the message without a real lecture, which I was afraid of.

During the discussion, I'd been giving Meg a bottle. She kept complaining when I tried to take it away and with the awkwardness in the room, I didn't force her to stop and burp like I might have at home. Bad idea. After she finished her bottle, she let out a really loud burp. And then proceeded to upchuck the entire bottle all over me, the chair and the floor. Charming. We then felt even more awkward about the whole thing and while the pastor was gracious, his personality isn't one to make a joke and relieve the tension or anything. After that, I had to sit through another 15 minutes of discussion with spit up all over my shirt and hair. And they say motherhood isn't glamorous.

In other news, there was an earthquake with an epicenter in Annandale, Virginia, yesterday, which is a few miles from here. How random is that? I totally felt it, too. I was home with Andy asleep and Meg on my bed when I heard a boom and the house shook. It freaked me out. It felt like something had exploded in the basement because it was definitely the whole house shaking for a second and it wasn't just on one side. I looked outside to see if they were doing any work on the streets and didn't see anything. The kids didn't notice, but the cats were a little freaked out.

Operation Big Boy Bed

We're still gearing up for Operation Big Boy Bed. It's involving more moving parts only because his current room is too small to accommodate all his stuff and a twin sized bed so we're swapping the computer room with his room. The bad part is it turns out we have lots and lots of crap in both rooms (shocker) that needs to get sorted first. It feels good to shed a lot of stuff we don't need, but I'm getting some angry looks from the big boys in the house for disrupting their very busy schedules of sitting around. I'm also turning myself into a martyr about the whole thing. I'm sure they love that, too.

I did go out and get a bed rail for the twin bed (see left). The twin is actually one I inherited from Liz ages ago (she'd probably be shocked to realize I still have it). I would like to paint it from the wood color to white, I think. I'd also like to paint a wooden bookcase, but I think I'll do first things first and make the room switch and worry about decor later. I do want to get out with Andy this week and pick out some new sheets for the bed. Since he's not getting a racing bed or anything crazy like that, I might succumb to a Thomas and Friends pattern. It goes against my nature, but it just makes him so happy that it's hard to argue.

The weather here in Virginia is just dreadful. The drive to Annapolis for the baptism today involved pouring rain both ways and very limited visibility on the Beltway. If we didn't have to be there, it would have been a great day to hunker down, watch She's Having a Baby and Adventures in Babysitting that have been on TBS on loop all weekend.

The trifecta

We went to the doctor today and Andy has the trifecta - ear infection, runny nose and sore throat all with a nasty cough. The good news is it's not in his lungs so no worry about pneumonia, but he had a cold that went to his ears and throat. The weird thing is he's been an angel this week and except for the cough, I didn't seem to notice him not feeling well. And now except for the cough, he seems in good spirits and rather cheerful and funny. Go figure. He got his first prescription for antibiotics and started after lunch. I hope it doesn't tear up his stomach the way the antibiotics messed me up around Christmas.

It's cold here and getting colder. An artic mass is pushing through and it's really windy, too, and makes screeching sounds as it whips around the house. We also have a little bit of snow flurries, but nothing is sticking. It really feels like winter now.

Global warming?

It's been unseasonably warm here the past few weeks. That sucks because I really love the snow, but the upshot has been that it's warm enough for Andy and I to spend some time outside, usually with me pulling him in the wagon. Everyone here seems to be freaking out that this is a sure sign of global warming and that we're all shortly going to drown this month as the ice caps melt and North America becomes under water. I do think there is some cause and effect with emissions and such, but I also believe the earth goes through periods where it is warmer and colder. Fortunately, no one is counting on me to predict these things.

The funny thing is I vividly remember nearly two years ago walking into the hospital to deliver Andy. It was a warm January morning. Granted, I was 9 1/2 months pregnant, hot and hormonal, but I walked in with just a light jacket. I don't even think a jacket was required when we checked out. That last long enough for me to get off the narcotics and driving again for the temperatures plummeted and we were stuck indoors for most of the rest of my maternity leave. Funny, I couldn't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, but I can describe the weather patterns from those few weeks.

Meanwhile, we tried to get a family picture with Andy's grandmother when everyone was together for Mark's birthday. Guess who didn't want his picture taken. I think next year I'm going to pick the Christmas card photo where he's bawling. At least it would be funny.