Weasel Of Doom

We are being hit by a lot of snow. Milwaukee is under a snow emergency starting at 3 am. I am bummed out because my camera is being fixed* somewhere in New York, so no pictures for us…

* at least I hope it is being fixed. It was delivered to the repair shop at 10 am on Wednesday, and I haven’t heard a peep since. I need to find some way to contact them and see what’s happening to my camera, if anything. That’s on the To Do list for Monday…

At the end of December, Squeekers rolled from tummy to back for the first time. And haven’t done it since. He prefers to flap around like a stranded fish and scream, in hopes that somebody else would do the rolling over thing for him.

Last night, I woke up at 2 am to the Squeekery one’s muffled hungry squeeks. The reason for muffled became clear once I realized he was on his tummy. He must have done it again after the 6 am feeding – when I left this morning, he was snoozing contentedly on his tummy, smelling rather strongly of a loaded diaper.

(of course, since my camera is en route to a Nikon repair facility in NY, I have no pictorial proof. Which totally sucks, because if the pattern holds true, it is going to be months before Squeek decides to roll over again)

I finally got the kids’ cold, so been taking naps on and off this whole weekend. As a result, it is now 2 am and I am not particularly sleepy. Argh. (At least this came in handy last night, when both DemonChild and Squeeker decided to take a couple of hours of “awake time” from 2 am to 4 am.)

Been totally unproductive all weekend, but did manage to add gallery photos to the blog and photos and blog excerpts to the homepage tonight. Total trial and error, but hey, it works. Now I need to upgrade WordPress, and that’s not going to be fun, since of course I have not been keeping track of the modifications I did to the current install. I think I will save this particular project for later. And now, to fold kids’ clothes and then shower and bed…

I took down our Christmas tree last night.* As I was taking off the ornaments, needles rained down onto the table and carpet in a soft whisper, and for some reason it was almost unbearably sad. A few times in my life, we had great Christmas trees – I remember the one in Russia that actually grew soft new needles from the tips of the branches, and the one we got in our second year in the house in New Berlin, that looked like a skinny carrot in its netting and opened up to be the most perfectly shaped and full tree we ever had. My parents picked the tree out this year. We drove to a tree farm an hour away, and walked around in the cold and snow, and my mother-in-law found a pine she liked and we finally decided on a little five-foot spruce, almost as wide as it was tall. My parents decorated it, and put it on top of a table, to lessen the temptation for DemonChild. It stood there for two months. The great room smelled of fir, the clean smell of the outdoors. And now the tree is gone, and only a lingering smell of vacuumed-up needles remains.

* I am not one of those people who take down their Christmas trees the day after Christmas. Nope. Our trees stay until the New Year, and the Russian Christmas, and the Russian Old New Year, and frequently Valentine’s Day. And it’s not (just) because I am lazy. What can I say? I like my Christmas trees, and am never in a hurry to get rid of them. Perhaps it’s a Russian thing. The tree that started growing new needles stuck around until March, I think…

That was me falling off the “blog frequently, take photos frequently” wagon AGAIN. Let’s take a look how our other resolutions are fairing…

1. Be a better wife – ummm… ummmm… I suck… Or, as the case may be, I don’t suck… Yeah…
2. Be a better mother – surprisingly, doing somewhat better than expected there. Still nowhere near patient enough, and tend to slip into English when the going gets tough, but DemonChild has learn a couple of Russian words, even if he absolutely refuses to say any of them
3. Be a better friend – that did not go too well. Haven’t emailed anybody. *sigh*
4. Be a better employee – hard when half the time I am a tired out zombie, but I am trying.
5. Get organized – *insert maniacal laughter here*
6. Take pictures of the kids every day, or at least every other day – was actually doing pretty good at that one, but now my camera decided to bite the dust (well, partially bite the dust – I can still take pictures if I use the manual focus, but that’s about it)
7. Blog every day, or at least every other day – join me in the hearty “Ha Ha” here. Last two weeks, the blog entries would have been “so tired… falling asleep at keyboard….haiietiaeghaighsagdohdgif” You get the idea
8. Keep track of money – As my Dad says, “There are two questions we need answers for. Where does dust come from, and where does money go?” I have no answers
9. Pay everything on time – *sigh* if it ain’t automated, it ain’t getting paid
10. Go through all the boxes in the house – I think the basement will just have to resign itself to being a scary scary place
11. Waste less time – but that’s my one skill!
12. Get American driver’s license – amazingly, that one got done. Temperatures dropped in hell, etc, etc.
13. Decide whether or not I want to apply for American citizenship this year – still thinking
14. Send out Squeeker’s birth announcements and Christmas cards – I think we can forget about Christmas cards. There is some hope for the birth announcements still
15. Go through my clothes and get rid of at least some of them – but this would actually involved DOING something…
16. Lose 10 lbs – this should probably be “get in shape” and no, I have not made any progress on that, either
17. Not kill any more house plants – solution: get new house plants, because the old ones has been tortured so much they need to be put out of their misery
18. Videotape kids doing cute stuff at least once a week – still kinda-sorta managing to keep up with that one, but if I had to give our effort a grade, it would be a D, possibly a C-
19. Clean and organize office at work – half-way there, and then my motivation committed suicide
20. Finish OGRE afgan for BelovedSpouse – have not touched yarn this year

To summarize: ONE done. Making some progress on FOUR more. *hangs head in shame*