cindy's world

You guys know how I sometimes post things that are unpleasant/traumatic for me but give entertainment value to you because I’m such a nice blogger? Things like the Pumping Incident? Okay, here’s another one.

The day started much like any other weekday. I woke up, brushed my teeth and washed my face, popped in my eyeballs, pulled on a dress, threw some yoga clothes into my bag, and went to wake up the kid. I changed her, she played with my hair, we went downstairs to wait for Jayne. Jayne arrived, took over Allie duty while we chatted about this or that or Allie’s lunch for the day, hubby and I packed into the car and we carpooled to our work locations. At my work, I walked through the public, put my stuff on the conveyor x-ray machine, walked through the metal detector, said greetings to coworkers, rode up the elevator with another coworker chatting about this and that, and I got off on my floor to go into my courtroom. And then I scratched my upper chest area just under my neck and thought, “This dress has a higher neckline than I remember.” I looked down and pulled the front of my collar away from my chest. And I got on my cell phone and tapped out this status message on the social networking site:

Cindy just got into her courtroom & noticed she’s got her whole dress on backwards. #whyDontPeopleTellUThoseThings #MaybeNobodyNoticed

My online friends (some real life ones) got a kick out of that and commented on the message, sharing stories of how they’d worn mismatched shoes, earrings, sweaters turned inside-out, to work themselves. Some even had experience with clothes worn backwards, altho those were all people referring to their young children who had dressed themselves. =P Flip Flop Girl comforted me by pointing out that unless it were a backless dress, nobody would have noticed. The coworker who rode up the elevator with me emailed me privately, after seeing this status message, that she indeed did not know I had the dress on backwards, but that she’d even thought to herself how cute the dress was. I never thought I’d be one of those people whose clothing fit the same forward as backwards. That’s what I get for joking about a flat-chested girlfriend in high school, saying her bra fit better backward than forward. I blame pregnancy/nursing for the changes, but really, I don’t care that much. It was worth it for my kid to be healthy and smart.

Toward the end of lunch, I came back from yoga with only 5 minutes to spare so I changed really quickly in the jury room restroom and then ran out to the front hallway of the courtroom to take roll of my jurors. About a foot out the front door, I made a sudden U-turn and came back into the courtroom, rounded the corner behind the wall, and lifted my shirt collar to peer in again, making sure I didn’t once again have the dress on backwards. The problem, you see, was that my mom gave me this dress and she’d cut off the label, so the dress from the inside looks very similar the right way and the wrong way, except for some ragged bits of white peeking out under the seam if you were to look closely. My jurors probably wondered what the heck I was doing, going out and then arcing right back in, but it’s better than the alternative (turning the dress around in front of them in the public hallway).

Later in the afternoon, I was having a conversation with a very smart friend who holds multiple degrees, including a Ph.D. in law. He was saying that he’s told quite frequently that he is similar to the character of Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory.” I told him (only half-jokingly) that I’m not sure I could talk to him anymore, because I’m now totally intimidated, and that he must think I’m a moron. The rest of the conversation went like this:

Friend: “There is not one moronic thing about you. You are probably the most intelligent of all my [social networking site] friends.”
Me: “Well…I wore my dress backwards to work today.”
:/
My friend then tried to make me feel better by saying, “That’s because your mind is so busy thinking about important things, you haven’t the time to look at the tag.” Well, there was no tag to speak of, but mainly, the truth is, I pulled a moronic move. =P I’m not above admitting that.

I put on a black and white dress this morning that had a deep v-neckline, so I thought I’d add a splash of color with a drop necklace that has sparkly red rhinestones throughout. The stones are alternatingly small beads and large beads on a thin gold rope.

When I went to wake Allie up after getting dressed, she said upon seeing my necklace, “Ooh! Putty.” She fingered the beads.
“Thank you! You like mama’s necklace?”
“Uh-huh. Balls?” She pointed to the beads.
“Yeah, there are balls on this necklace.”
“BABY balls!” she said, touching one of the small beads.
“Yeah, there are little balls, and big balls, right?”
“Yah.” She watched the beads reflect the morning sunlight coming through her bedroom window, and noted, “Light, light!”
“Shiny necklace? Are the balls shiny?”
“Light.”
“That’s right, light.”
Allie pointed to her own neck, and said, “Allie like neck-less.”
“Allie likes mama’s necklace?”
“Yah. Mama like neck-less?”
“Yes, mama likes this necklace.”
“Dada like neck-less?”
“I don’t know if dada likes mama’s necklace, dada hasn’t seen it, yet.”
“Allie like neck-less.”
“Thank you!”

It’s great now that she’s beyond the age of the automatic grab-and-pull and I can start accessorizing, again. There are days I wear a piece of jewelry solely for her amusement, like an owl necklace I’d bought just because I know she likes owls. She also likes playing with mardi gras plastic bead strands that the stepkidlet lets her wear around the house. Allie likes putting it over her head, and then sticking each arm through and letting the large string of beads fall to her feet. The other day I wore my favorite simple white gold hoop earrings and she touched one and said, “Eawing.” There are so many words I don’t even know she has, every day is an adventure.

The stepkidlet took this video and sent this to me. It’s from last week. The speaking voice you hear is stepkidlet’s. Allie still doesn’t have the lyrics down, but the tune to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is getting better…as long as you ignore the fact that she drops a few bars in the middle and the end. 🙂

Earlier this week, they decided to try a collaboration. I was in the kitchen making Allie’s dinner, and I heard coming from the stepkidlet’s room, “Oh, oh, OH oh oh…”
“Play the guitar, Allie, good girl! Play the guitar!”
*strum strum strum strum*
“Oh oh OH oh oh!”
So I grabbed my phone, turned it to video record, and snuck in on them.

The stepkidlet calls Allie her “little harmonizer,” and says they’re going to be the “next Lennon and Maisy.” If you don’t know who they are (I didn’t, either), look them up on YouTube, where this single big and little sister duo got their early start on American pop radar.

Status Message tonight:

Cindy’s friend Dwaine had once said to her that you know you’re doing something right when you have haters. That still applies, right?
Dwaine: Even more so now. 😉
Cindy: I haven’t gotten this much, um, confirmation that I’m doing something right in years. YEARS.
Dwaine: You’re a victim of your own success. Congrats! 😀
Cindy: It’s disconcerting. But you always put such a happy spin on things. <3
Dwaine: You know who doesn’t have haters? …losers. Haters are just losers who don’t have the courage or conviction to follow your example. I love haters…as long as they watch their mouth around me. >:(

…I love that guy.
Women tend to either love me or hate me. I guess I can’t take personally that multiple stranger women whom I’ve never met have decided they’re threatened by my existence, especially when I haven’t done one negative thing to or toward them, all because men they’re apparently competing for (“competing” in THEIR perception) have initiated friendships with me, and these friendships developed hard and fast. Sometimes people just “click.” Doesn’t mean there’s anything going on. Maybe I’m more interesting than these women are to talk to. Maybe these women should work on their personalities. But it’s their issue, not mine. And my new guy friends have each told me privately that the women’s behaviors don’t matter to them and that they stand loyal to me. *eyeroll at these immature women, to whom I am NOT a threat if they could see past their own egos*

I’m excited Allie’s at the stage now where I can share kid stories. Both from today…

Earlier, in the car. I’m driving, Allie’s in the backseat with Mr. W.
Me: *looking in the rear-view mirror* Whoa, there’s an amazing sunset going on behind us!
Mr. W: Yup, and it’s going to get prettier, too. There’s some great clouds in the sky. Your mom and dad would love to be sitting in our backyard watching this tonight. [My parents stayed a week with us last week to take care of Allie, and their nightly ritual as I finished Allie’s bedtime routine was to sit outside and admire the sunset.]
Allie: Gong-gong, Po-po?
Me: How did she know that’s who we’re talking about?!

And then about an hour later, in Allie’s bathroom, Mr. W was holding her and I was flossing her teeth.
Allie: *reaching out with her little index finger and actually poking me in the EYE. Yes, she made contact with my EYEBALL.*
Me: Hey! You poked me in the EYE!
Allie: Mimi? Mimi?
Me: What? Mimi?
Allie: Mimi? Mimi? Eye.
Me: You poked Minnie in the eye?
Allie: Yeah!
Me: *confused*
Mr. W: Remember? At Disneyland yesterday? She poked Mickey in the eye?
Me: What?
Mr. W: We were taking a picture with Mickey and she poked him in the eye. And the photographer said, “Oh, no, Mickey, you’re gonna have to be a pirate now!”
Allie: *singing* Yo-ho, yo-ho!
Me: Whoa, she just sang the Pirates of the Caribbean song!
Allie: Boom! Boom!
(Because the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride does two drops in the beginning, which are her “boom”s. And then the “Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me…” starts playing.)

Okay, you had to be there. =P

BTW, the whole time we were at Disneyland Sunday morning, Allie kept saying, “Ewic. ‘Lexis. Di-ana.” Because the last time she was at Disneyland, she was there with them.

I noticed recently that Allie has been pluralizing her plural nouns. “Ball.” “More balls.” “Birdie.” “Birdies.”

Just now, she confirmed she understands quantity. I was just pulling Allie out of her bath and drying her off in her towel when Allie pointed to some of the bath toys by her tub that she didn’t use tonight. “Duckie,” she said.
“You want a duckie?” I asked.
“Yeah!”
“Which one, the dada duckie or the baby duckie?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Dada duckie?” Mr. W reached for the larger duck “dressed” in men’s clothing.
“No.”
“Little girl duckie?” Reaching for the smaller duckie in a tiara and “dress.”
“No.”
“Then which one do you want?”
“Two. Two duckies.”
“Oh, you want both of them?”
“Yeah!”
I didn’t think anything of it, giving her both duckies to play with while I finished dressing her, but Mr. W said, “Two! She understands what ‘two’ means!”
And then it hit me. “Oh yeah, huh!” I said in surprise.
Allie laughed at me, then imitated me. “Two duckies. Oh yeah, huh?”

Very cool beans.

Happy 21st bday to Toddler-boo. Now that she’s got more command over her physical and spoken skills, a lot more personality is coming through.

For example, yesterday. We’re always barefoot at home. I was sitting in chair and Allie came running by to see what I was doing, and she accidentally stepped on my bare foot with her bare foot. “Yikes! Allie’s foot is COLD!” I yelped.
Allie responded, “Mama…foot…hot.”
It’s all a matter of perspective.

She also likes singing. Her current favorite song to sing is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Rockabye Baby.” She doesn’t have all the lyrics down, though. Mr. W told me that earlier this week, he checked the babycam remotely from work and Allie was awake in her crib after her nap, rolling around, mouth moving up and down. So he turned on the sound, and he and his coworkers watched Allie sing, “Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle. *clapping for herself* Yaaay! *roll* Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle! *clapping* Yaaaay!” Her version of Rockabye Baby goes like this: “Rock baby. Rock baby. Rock baby.”

My parents have stayed with us this past week because the stepkidlet was still in Europe, and Jayne took off for the week to take her daughter to college on the East Coast. My parents did surprisingly well. They kept to Allie’s routine, and even made her fresh food for all Allie’s meals. AND, they had dinner ready for us when we got home. We don’t know how they did it, but we sure appreciated it. Allie’s been excited every day to spend it with “Gong-gong, po-po!” They’ve been teaching her Chinese, too. My mom sent me a bunch of videos yesterday.

To translate, my mom told Allie to say to her great-grandma, “Did not, did not, did not.” And then, “Did, did, did.” And then my dad had her count from 1 to 10 in Mandarin.

Allie had her first dance class (toddler ballet and jazz) last Saturday, and seemed to enjoy it, so we signed her up for a 10-week session. It’ll be every Saturday morning, and only lasts about 45 minutes. But she gets to play dress-up and run around with toddler girls her age and refine her physical skills.

The stepkidlet got back from Europe mid-week and is staying with her mom for the next few days, but came by to visit Allie and to give her some clothes she’d bought for Allie in Spain. Allie tried on the harem pants right away, and modeled them doing one of the moves she learned in dance class.

The toddler dance class itself was interesting. Trying to get 6 toddlers (all assisted by their moms) to do the same thing at the same time is like trying to corral and coordinate cats. They went through Disney songs and familiar songs pretty quickly, doing something different with each one, using lots of props like tiaras, star magic wands, hand streamers, flower, pom-poms, bubbles, colorful parachutes. It was a lot like Gymboree but dance-/movement-focused instead of toy-focused.

Allie’s broken teeth are doing well. She still doesn’t seem particularly sensitive to temperature or contact at the point of injury. She now bites carrots and other large pieces of food by moving the food to the side of her mouth, which is a little heart-breaking to watch, but she doesn’t have a problem with it. She’s adapted. I’m glad we didn’t put her under for root canals or extractions for nothing.

Babies are crazy-flexible. Allie will bend and do the downward dog position while announcing with a smile, “Yoga!” and her legs would be straight-kneed, and she’d have her head and elbows and forearms touching the ground in front of her. Crazy, given how long her legs are.

Oh, and she’s better with her colors now. She can tell you whether something is “red, yellow, blue, orange, green,” and hand over or point to objects of your expressed color.

Suddenly, however, she hates baths. I don’t know whether it’s because she hates bathing, or because it’s what tears her from her toys to bedtime. She still enjoys bedtime and naptime, tho, but she will pick up her legs crying, “No! No! No!” when Mr. W tries to put her into the bath. And her legs and toes will flare out and she’ll hang onto the edges of the tub to keep from going in.

We all went out for dinner mid-week when the stepkidlet visited. Allie ran into her old dancing partner*.

She’s going to outgrow him soon. She’s the baby in her dance class (everyone else is at least 2, or just a week from turning 2), and she’s taller than all of them.
Here’s another photo from after dinner, depicting one of those moments in great parenting.

(As with all my photos, rest mouse pointers over the photos for captions.)

* Allie’s old dancing partner. Here is a flashback.

So kind of funny… After writing the last 2 posts, I exchanged a couple of emails with the hestitant friend I’d mentioned in the earlier of the 2 posts, and he suddenly (instinctively, he said) let me into his inner circle. He’s going through some emotional reeling due to a romantic relationship issue, and that happens to be my specialty, so we’ve been chatting online about it nightly. He’s doing a lot better now so the chatter isn’t as involved as it was over the weekend, but we still touch base over it daily/nightly. It’s felt really, really nice to be able to help, to help someone feel better, help them move forward, be their sounding board…just like in the good ol’ days of youth. He’s lately my fitness guru, so it’s a reciprocating relationship. He truly feels he can get me “in the best shape of [my] life” by instructing me remotely. We’ll see.

In any case, I’m always happy to have a new quality friend.

I was notified this morning that my friend’s husband Rick had shot himself last night and was in ICU. Rick’s gun collection was something impressive, had I known enough about guns to be impressed, so I’d thought (hoped) that he was cleaning his guns or goofing off or something and accidentally shot himself in the foot. As more information came out, the people in the know told us this was intentional, and that a neurologist was going to examine him this morning. And then someone in the hospital with my friend said something about life support and the possibility of organ donations, so Ramon (the primary guy keeping me in the loop; he’s my former jujitsu sensei although he’s only a few years older than I am) and I were confused. If a doctor would use a donated organ on Rick, that means there’s a good chance of survival, right? But if a neurologist was examining him, doesn’t that mean there was head trauma? So where did he shoot himself? Did he spray himself with a shotgun somehow? I shared our confusion with Mr. W and he said that it sounds to him like Rick shot himself in the head and if the neurologist determined he was brain dead, they would keep him on life support to keep his body alive in order to donate Rick’s organs to someone else.

I texted my friend, because I didn’t want to bother her, but I also wanted her to know I was thinking of her with love and prayers. She texted back, “Thanks Cindy. Please send my love to [Mr. W]. We’ll let you guys know somehow where the memorial will be held.” So to her, Rick was already gone. I think Mr. W was right. I was later informed that Rick would be taken off life support tomorrow.

Ramon called me after he’d spoken to my friend (the wife) personally. We’d rarely seen or spoken to each other since we both got married, I had Allie and he now has 2 daughters, one turning 3 soon and another mere months old. Allie was napping, and Ramon’s wife had taken the baby for a short weekend trip to NorCal and his mother-in-law was at his house helping with his older daughter. It was a rare time that we were both free, and it was a rare occasion that made this phone contact necessary. We talked for 45 minutes, which he said was likely the longest phone conversation he’d ever had with anyone.

At the end of our conversation, I told him about the topic of my last blog entry, written last night (altho I never said I had a blog). It was kind of like, ask and ye shall receive. But I never imagined something like this would be the catalyst to a rebond with a friend. He said he’d only spoken to Rick last weekend and everything seemed fine. This came out of nowhere. I’ve been obsessing about this all day. I don’t understand what happened. It would make more sense if this were an accident, and Rick, being the usual clown he always was, didn’t realize the gun was loaded and was playing around. His wife, my friend, was at home when it happened, but I’m scared to ask her anything. I just keep thinking whether I should’ve been more diligent as a friend so that I could’ve maybe picked up on something. And how he loved her so much, how could he leave her in this way? He’s got to know the kind of emotional, psychological, financial, practical, legal, etc. mess he’s leaving behind for her to deal with, alone. I don’t understand it at all. He didn’t seem depressed or psychologically compromised in any way; they were still social, since the reason Ramon talked to him last weekend was because Rick had called to see if Ramon & family wanted to go with them to the County Fair. (Ramon had to decline as they were out of town.)

I’m just at a loss, and I don’t know what to do or how to help.

One of my favorite things about my teenage and young adult friendships was the ability to spend inordinate amounts of time analyzing people, relationships, thoughts, dreams, and so on. We camped out on the phone for hours at a time, and come to think of it, most of those conversations weren’t about what HAPPENED, they were about what it meant, or may mean, that whatever happened happened.

I’m older now and the luxury of spending hours on the phone or hanging out in person has taken a back, back seat to things that need to get DONE. It’s become a new way of life, and none of my previous phone conversation savvy friends — at least, none that I’m still in contact with — do this with anyone anymore, at least not on a regular basis. We all prefer shorter, at-your-convenience types of communication that can be broken up throughout the day, over a number of days. Texting. Emailing. When the phone rings, we’re annoyed and usually perceive ourselves as too busy to pick it up. And who is so demanding as to dare place a phone call, as if requiring my attention NOW? Don’t I have anything to say about when I can or want to talk? Don’t they know it’s dinnertime/driving time/time I’m busy with the spouse/kid/work? The audacity!

So it was that I looked around mentally at my potential contacts tonight, then flipped through my mental Rolodex for someone I can talk to regarding a new friend I have who is fascinatingly puzzling, and about whom I may have suddenly had a psychological breakthrough analysis…and I find nobody I can have that kind of conversation with. Some of the people I used to talk to are still in my life, but they’re busy with their own lives with things that have more pressing urgency (i.e., young kids) than what I need them for. The irony is that this new friend could be the right person to have this kind of conversation with, provided I do it all over email, but I can’t very well talk to someone about themselves and how I think they may have a narcissist disorder and how/why I think that and what it may say about me given how I came to that possible conclusion.

And then I suddenly recall that weeks ago, I’d tried to recruit another new friend into that position (over email), and how it hadn’t gone anywhere, the friend bowing out of contributing to my theories and analyses by claiming insufficient expertise in the area to discuss such with me. I understood, but bummer.

I miss not being an island.