Ella’s quirks have been more language based, although not my language.  We we at a restaurant last week and the waitress gave us some crayons to amuse the kids until the grub arrived.  Shawn picked up the red crayon, and said “Ella what color is this?”  “Rojo” she said.  “Is that right?” he asked me. “If she speaks Spanish” I said.  “Ok, Ella, whats this?” he said, holding the blue. “Azul”  he shot me the look, and I said, “yup” “OK, whats this?” ” Huuuh,” she sighed, looking bored, “verde” green.  She was 3 for 3.  So Then Shawn switched tactics.  “What color is this in English?” He said, indicating the red.  “Ummmm, purple?”  It didn’t get any better.  She was dead on in Spanish and had no idea in English.  Thanks Dora! 

My other odd Ella anecdote involves idioms.  She keeps saying “You know what that means!” in a very suggestive voice.  At first we thought it was cute, and then we realized that she didn’t “know what that means”  She said it the other day, and Shawn said “What does that mean, Ella?”  “Ummmm, you know, You know what that means.”  We do, she does not.  Now we just laugh when she says it. 

So anyway, thats what they are up to, and I am just trying to get one step ahead.  On the bright side, if Obama is elected Ella will be good, or as we say around here “bueno.”

My health insurance company is Cigna, and Cigna is trying to save themselves some money by educating their customers how to care for their chronic illnesses.  They have a program called “WellAware” and they have an RN contact you to educate you about your disease and instruct you in proper disease management. 

25 months ago I got pregnant with my son, now 15 months old, William.  As with my first child i had gestational diabetes.  I had lots of doctors appointments, and bought lots of diabetes related prescriptions, and thus Cigna flagged me for WellAware.  Now, all of my bills were for pregnancy related diabetes tests/appointments.  I actually spoke with them about this.  They were very nice. 

A few weeks after Will was born (15 months ago) they called me to talk about my diabetes.  I told them that I no longer had diabetes and that I was fine, and please remove me from their list.  They said I had to talk to the head nurse.  I said ok, and waited for 15 minutes on hold.  I then hung up.  They called me back a few days later, and wanted to talk about my (nonexistant) diabetes.  I explained that I no longer had it, and they could please leave me alone.  They said, ok, it was gestational diabetes?  Yes.  As in pregnancy related, as in I am no longer pregnant, and I now have a screaming infant to deal with.  Ok, the lady said, and I figured that was the end of this.  Then they called back.  I didn’t answer.  They left a message about how they wanted to talk and educate me about my gestational diabetes.  The funny part was that Cigna had paid for my C-section.  They knew that I wasn’t pregnant. 

So that was when i stopped answering the phone.  My time is too valuable to talk to idiots that can be avoided by reading my caller id.  They kept calling.  i kept ignoring.  In the mean time, they stopped recieving claims from me regarding diabetes related services, and for that matter, pregnancy related services.  They kept calling.  Then, in a few months I got a letter.

“Dear Meghan, “  it began…

     We understand that you have gestational diabetes, and we would like to talk to you regarding how you are managing your care.  We have been attempting to contact you (duh) and when we call your caller id will say “WellAware.”   etc….

That was a year ago.  I have gotten a similar letter refrencing my gestational diabetes and how is my treatment going, every two months.  They keep calling, and I keep ignoring them.  What I really want to know is this; Do they think I am still pregnant, or are they too dumb to understand the ‘gestational” part of my diabetes.  Twenty five months is a hell of a long pregnancy, and I am hoping someday, someone with two or three braincells catches the error.  In the meantime, I am still ignoring them, because, frankly, anyone who thinks I have had gestational diabetes for 25 months probably isn’t going to teach me anything.

Now, as a whole Go Diego Go is not as annoying as, say Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, or even Dora the Explorer (who, incidentally, is Diego’s cousin.)  Dora is like Diego on acid.  At least Diego rescues animals that exist here on earth.  Dora lives in a rainbow and lollipop world of singing, dancing trolls, and talking trees.  She also has a head the size of a large watermelon, and she wears a belly shirt.  I hate that.  The whole thing is really rather trippy.

So anyway, Shawn and I being the loving parents we are,  wander on down to iParty and buy about $40 worth of Diego party themed crap.  All to make our baby girl happy.  We got hats, balloons, a table cloth, etc. ect.  Ella loved it.  She was in 3 year old birthday heaven.  The piece de resistance of the whole party was her gift.  It was a big girl bed.  To really sell the bed to her, we bought – DIEGO BEDDING! Ella hates change, to the point where if we borrow our dad’s van, she will  cry because she misses our car.  The Diego bedding was the only way we would get her to sleep in a bed before she had to move out to go to college. 

The best part of the whole party was that we, as parents, made the executive decision not to have a party that involved other people kids until next year, when we figure she will know the difference.  We only invited immediate family.  This brought the total to 15 people, including Ella, Will, and my little sister Greta who is Will’s age.  So we had a theme party for adults.  Really.  They even wore the hats.  Ella had a good time, and I guess thats all that matters.  Next year we will have to invite more kids.  I shudder at the thought, but my solace is that I will not be having the party here, but at some child party place, that makes cake and cleans up after the little imps.  So we are done for a year.  The only thing remaining is all the mexican food leftovers that we had for the party.  Does anyone want a taco?

* An afterthought.

If you ever have a Diego theme party, and end up inviting all adults, a fun game might be “pin the country on the nonspecifically spanish speaking child.”

Yesterday, i decided that now would be a good time to start one of the many homeowner projects that are always simmering on the back burner.  You know what I mean.  You see something on the DIY network, and they make it look so easy a kindergarten class could do it.  So you (or I) scamper down to the local Home Depot and buy what you think you need and rip apart your house thinking when its done you will have added $10,000 to your selling price.  In actuality, you will need to hire a professional to fix whatever you did before you can sell your house to anyone.  But I digress…

Fast forward (or rewind) to yesterday.  I am in the basement, cleaning it out, and throwing away all kinds of stuff i should have trashed, but instead put in the basement.  So I am cleaning, and I hear the sounds of my kids playing happily, really happily, too happily.  I go upstairs and the kids have TRASHED the living room and the kitchen.  Ella is picking up her toys, throwing them, and yelling “YAY TOYS!!!!”  It never ceases to amaze me what two small children, working together, can accomplish.  I looked at them, shuddered and went back to the basement, in total denial about what was happening upstairs.  My justification was that they were happy, safe, and at least they were playing together.  So after about an hour of carrying trash out of the basement and putting it outside, I decided to try and work on the living room.  The kids had dumped the toy box, Ella’s jewelry was all over the living room, and they had a lot of stuff from my room out there as well.  Including my desk chair.  Its one of those rolly computer chairs that you can raise and lower the seat on.  The seat sinks after about 5 mins of being raised, but that is besides the point.  It has an adjustable back, and that’s where my issue started.  I picked it up by the back, and it popped off the chair, and smashed me in the nose.  It hurt.  And then came the blood, and this is where I got the two black eyes.  I called Shawn at work, thinking I might have broken my nose, and he insisted that I email him pictures.  I did, but I am pretty sure he just wanted to laugh at me and show his co-workers.  Maybe he had a little sympathy after he saw them.  They looked pretty bad.

So anyway, if I had avoided the home improvment project, the kids never would have gotten my chair to the livingroom in the first place.  Thus all home improvment should be avoided at all costs, at the risk of bodily harm.  So, I am not going to try anything remotely exciting ever again, or at least until the brusing fades.

When I was 19, I moved out, and at the risk of sounding like a counrty song, I went to Wal-mart, and bought the essentials for my 1rst apartment.  Being 19, I bought the cheapest version of everything.  Most of these appliances were Sunbeam brand, and in the past 6 years, they have all died and been replaced by better, more useful things.  Not the toaster.  Let me just clarify some facts about this toaster.  It is only a 2 slot toaster, and its slots are not really big enough for Wonderbread, so its way too small for the large homemade bread my family eats.  My kids live on bread, and 2 slots were not nearly enough.  Every month or so, Shawn and I would have the same conversation.  It went like this.

“We need a new toaster, this one is a piece of garbage.”  “Yeah, we need a bigger one” “Should we get a toaster oven” “I dunno, maybe just a 4 slot…”  “Well, this one is going to die soon anyway…” 

This had been going on for 4 1/2 YEARS!  And still we have old faithless living in the kitchen.

The Toaster is also bipolar.  Some days, you can crank it, and the bread will be warm at best, other days, low will blacken your toast.  Somewhere along the line, something plastic was set too close to the toaster, and it melted and fused to the side of the the toaster.  That just adds to the beauty.  In the 6 years I have owned it, I have moved 4 times, and that was the closest thing to cleaning the piece of garbage ever got, the crumbs would fall out in the move.  The stupid thing was a six dollar toaster, so I could never bring myself to clean it, i was always just hoping it would stop working, and I could justify a new one.   

Now, if it were just me, I would have “retired” the toaster many years ago, but 4 1/2 years ago, Shawn came into the equasion.  Shawn hates throwing things away.  I don’t know, maybe he became sentimental, maybe he likes the underdog.  Maybe he’s cheap and enjoys burnt toast.  Either way, we still have the stupid thing.  Until today.  Last night it stopped toasting.  Shawn plugged it in, and unplugged it, and hit it.  Nothing revived it.  I practially did a happy dance.  This morning I unceremoniously threw it into the trash.  I didn’t remember to do this until after the trash came and went (I swear this toaster has 9 lives), so it will be hanging around for another week, outside, anyway.  Tonight I will be buying a new, and hopefully functional toaster. 

Maybe this whole incident is a testament to my procrastination.  In either case, its the end of an era.  That was the last vestige of my “1rst apartment stuff”  I am not getting sentimental, actually, good riddance.  I’m going shopping.

I need to talk about the FDA for a minute here.  Last year, they pulled all the cold and allergy meds for kids under two, because some stupider than average parents were OD’ing their kids in an attempt to make them sleep, or possibly because they couldn’t do math.  The reason they gave (the FDA) is that the medicines don’t work.  That’s a load.  They did work.  Ask any parent who has been up all night with a baby that has a cold, and has slipped them the last of the contraband decongestant (which we all have stashed away for times like this) who has then seen the baby start to clear out and go to sleep.  The meds did work, its just they were seeing too many stupid people administer them incorrectly.  Thank you, morons, for ruining it for the rest of us. 

Ok, so Will is itchy, and I can’t do anything for him.  Ella, thankfully, is old enough for Zyrtec.  Even though she feels better, there is still a problem.  Its been raining forever.  The kids can’t go outside and burn off any energy.  The other part of the problem is, when the sun shines the grass never dries, because its now as long as your average hay field.  No one can mow, because we are getting 5 minutes of sun per week.  Add to this the humidity, and now my lawn looks like a scene from Alice in Wonderland.  There are toadstools that are bigger than my kids.  This makes me nervous about letting them play outside, because, you guessed it, Will would try and eat the mushrooms.  I am pretty sure that they are poisonous, and i don’t want Will testing the thoery.

This leads me to yesterday.  I went to the basement, which smells like your average cave, to do some laundry, and i hear my kids upstairs laughing with glee.  This is not a good sign.  When I get upstairs, you can no longer see my floor.  Its covered with the contents of a case of daipers from Sams Club.  200 daipers, on the floor.  Ok, so, 199 on the floor, and one on Wills head, like a hat.  Ella is charging back and forth across the livingroom, throwing daipers like confetti, and Will, is wearing one on his head, and climbing into the now empty case and using it as a fort.  It was almost a shame to clean it up, but the anal retentive in me must be satisfied.  I loaded the diapers into the drawer where they were going to begin with, and went back downstairs.  Again, i hear happy voices, and go up to check it out.  Ella has unloaded the drawer, and put the diapers back into the box.  Will, then took them out, so he could get back into the box, (hat in place) and covered the floor.  Again.  So I put the box outside in the trash, and loaded up the drawer, again, and explained to the kids, again, that diapers aren’t toys. So this gets me to my point.  Maybe we could all pray for a little sun?

“Share the Road with bicycles” OK, I will share the road, as soon as all you bikers realize something.  You are not a car.  You are small, hard to see and slow.  You love to pretend that you are a car, sitting in traffic, and slowing the rest of us, with motors, down.  That is, until you come to a traffic light, then you suddenly turn back into a bike, and glide on through the red light.  Pick one,  car or bike.  You either obey traffic laws or you don’t. Bikers remind me of my other favorite road hazard.  Floridians, back in Maine for the summer.  ***Disclaimer: I am not ageist, i just hate bad drivers, and I am perfectly willing to hand over my licence when I am old and senile, if I can find it.***  I love the old, hat wearing, drivers tooling around at 20mph, regardless of the actual speed limit.  They don’t signal, or they signal that they are making a left turn for 20 miles on the interstate, or other straight roads with no left turn options.

“Pray the Rosary” No.  I have never heard of a “roadside conversion”

“Kerry/Edwards 2004″  Come on now, back to planet earth folks.  You lost, scrape the stupid thing off.

“Ron Paul for President”  Ok, so there are like 2 real Liberaterians, and I know one of them.  Her name is Kasey, and she is my best friend.  She can have this sticker, ridicule free because she is a true believer.  The rest of you need to spend less time on the Internet.

“Dennis Kucinich for President” If I see this, I look for one of two things, either the mother ship, or the men in white coats.

“George Bush is not my president” Ok, I am the first to admit that Georgie Boy isn’t the brightest crayon in the box.  In fact, his legacy will be his inability to pronounce most of the English language.  Here is my issue with this one, if you live in the USA, he is your president.  That is how this board game called democracy works, and if you really have that big an issue, move to Canada.  I’ll help you pack.

“My dog/cat/guniea pig is smarter than your honor student.”  Nope, get a life.  Your dog/cat/guniea pig still wipes its butt with its tounge, and until that behavior ceases, my kid wins.

“In loving memory of …”  If I die young, (or old) please, PLEASE don’t memorialize me on your back window. 

Ok, so I am in a caustic mood today, but I’ll stop, because I feel better already.  Next time you are out for a drive, look around and let  me know what your favorite sticker isn’t.  If you have any “good” stickers on your car, and you see me driving next to you, laughing, its not because I heard something funny on the radio.

*******important note********

Per my husband – Paul on the road to Damascus was a “roadside conversion” however, it was not due to bumber sticker wisdom.

Also, my comments about “in loving memory” are meant to be funny, not to hurt anyones feelings, and I apologize if I did, it just does not appeal to my sense of propriety.

On the home front, my good little boy has turned into a one year old monster.  He is smart, and faster than his pudgy little legs let on.  The movie “Look Who’s talking” has a great quote.  “You spend nine months of your life trying to get out, and the rest of your life trying to get back in.”  that is true of Will, but not in the same sense.  He spends his life trying to wedge himself into a small space, but its the dishwasher.  He tries to climb into it every time its open.  Yesterday he made an awesome, if not disgusting, discovery. Momma puts dihes into the dishwasher that still have food on them!!!!  This is what happened…

I am loading the dishwasher, and Will stands up, and grabs a spatula with brownie batter on it, and crawls under the table, and begins to lick it.  “Will, NO! Yucky!”  I said.  I proceeded to crawl under the table to grab the spatula, and while I am doing this, he darts out, and grabs a peanut butter covered butter knife and is back under the table in a flash.  Man the kid is fast.  We played this game for a few more minutes before I was able to distract him with a snack that was more interesting than dirty dishes.  He now monitors the dishwasher.  It would be a tragedy if it was opened and he didn’t get to “prewash” the dishes for me.  I’ll just add this to the list of things I can’t do while he is awake.

If that were the nastiest thing he did yesterday, that would still make for a gross day.  Alas, it was not, not by a long shot.  Will found the trashcan. 

I came into the kitchen and he was standing at the trash, opening the cover sucking on something, surrounded by the remains of a butter wrapper.  He had found a butter wrapper, licked all the butter off it, and proceeded to eat half of the paper.  I thought my head was going to explode.  “Will! No honey, thats yucky!” He had just eaten lunch.  I took the paper out of his mouth and cleaned up the butter wrapper.  He looked like a greased pig, he was covered.  He had the audacity to cry because I took his snack.  It took maybe 10 minutes to clean up the mess.  I went back to whatever I was doing, (probably laundry, since thats all I ever do now,) and so did Will.  It got quiet, too quiet.  I looked in the kitchen and there he was, digging through the trash.  This time he found some old bread.  Yuck.  “Will, no baby!”  We had a talk, consisting of me pointing at the trash saying No! yuck! I got him playing with a toy, within my line of sight and we were fine.  For about 10 minutes.  He quietly crawled away, and I heard the unmistakable sound of my trashcan falling on the floor.  I ran into the kitchen. The little imp had flipped the can and crawled halfway inside.  His prize was a paper towel covered in peanut butter,  When he saw me, he stuffed the whole thing into his mouth and tried to high tail it under the table, but momma was faster.  He was mad when I fished the paper towel out of his mouth.  Oh well. 

By this point, i was done with the trash.  My brilliant idea was to put black pepper in the trash can.  I am pretty sure that is what you are supposed to do with dogs.  Now, I am not naive enough to think that will slow down my little puppy, but at least I should be able to hear him sneeze when he opens the trash.

Ella decided to take me up the beach to look for “the aminals that live in shells.”  Will sat in the rocks and made a pile in Auntie Kasey’s lap.  We never found any live snails, but we did find a dead crab that was kinda interesting, until Ella got a whiff of it and she decided that it was “ucky!”  Speaking of ucky, our next adventure was the public restroom.  I took Ella in with me.  “Ella, don’t touch anything!  Its all dirty”  We went in and Ella immediatly noticed that “it smells uuuuucky!”  30 seconds go by… “still ucky!” “still ucky” “ewwwwwwww”  Ella made a beeline for the bench where Kasey and Will were waiting.  “Its dirty in there!”  She told Will. 

So we packed it up, and headed to Winterport to drop off kasey at her in-laws house.  The kids were asleep about 10 seconds after the car started.  It was great.  As soon as we dropped off Kasey, they both woke up and started screaming.  “I want Auntie Kasey! I miss her!”  Ella screamed, and Will was just incoherently yelling because Ella woke him up when she started wailing.  I pulled back out onto the main road, and hoped they would fall asleep.  No such luck.  Ella kept crying.  Will kept crying.  By the time we hit Hampden, I wanted to cry.  I was exceeding the speed limit by about 15 mph, and I looked back and saw why Will was mad, he had gone from screaming-baby-red to pooping-baby-plum.  He hates pooping in the car.  “Mommy, baby pooed and its ucky!”  Great.  They screamed, I kid you not, from Winterport to BREWER.  Non stop.  So I am tired, but it was worth it.  Until Ella pooped in the bathtub.  I guess they are my kids after all.