Okay, so we're having one of those days. You know the kind I'm talking about. Its 5:30, Georgia's just in a diaper (which she just figured out how to un-velcro), Daniel's just in undies. In the last hour and half, I've had finger paints smeared on me, been spit up on, got cactus under my shirt somehow, broke out in a rash, had dog bowl water spilled on me and my floor. We've been through one bath already. And now I'm sitting listening to my 2 yr old playing my $12,000 piano saying "This is a song about whiskey"

Now if that doesn't scare the pants off all of you, I don't know what will. Happy Halloween !

I hate bureaucracy!!!!!!

I'm so mad I could spit. I just got off the phone with the lovely folks at the Austin Municipal Court, and let me tell you, the mess they have me in takes the cake. I actually cannot believe I'm being subjected to this level of incompetence. Let's go back to the beginning of this debacle, shall we? Back in July I got a ticket. Yes, I was speeding. On my way to a doctor appointment, I might add. And yes, my registration was past due. I own up to the fact that I'm not terribly organized in that department and it caught up to me. Okay. So, I was eligible for a driver's safety course and all I had to do was renew that registration, get all the various proofs sent in by the court date, and all was good to go. Or so I thought. I did all of the above. Only, the highly intelligent police officer made two mistakes. One, he spelled my name wrong on the ticket. So, my name on my insurance AND my driver's liscense did not match the records. And two, he WROTE DOWN THE WRONG VIOLATION!! He supposedly wrote that my inspection was out of date, not my registration. How do you get something like that wrong?! How? Oh, but it gets better. The court supposedly sent out notices to me to get the paperwork they needed. I never recieved said notices. So, now the burden is on me to correct someone else's mistakes. I have to write letters to the judge, I have to show that my inspection was in fact current. All the while, Ms. Meanie Pants on the phone is acting like I'm some criminal and that I'm lying to her about the mistakes that she made. She actually had the nerve to say to me "Oh no, your inspection was out of date. I'm looking at the ticket. That's the truth." The truth?! That's the truth?! I'll tell her what the truth is. The truth is that it took me an entire afternoon of paying a babysitter to watch the kids while I ran all over town getting the paperwork together in the first place. And now I'm going to have to do all that again to clean up after an incompetent cop, incompetent legal system and an incompetent city government that doesn't even have enough phone lines so that it took 4 days for me to finally get through to a surly government employee. Our tax dollars at work, folks. Why can't I just live in Montana where there's no speed limit, no registration stickers and no inspection stickers either.

The Golden Pig

There she is, my little golden pig. I guess you can't really see her shirt very well, but it says "Golden Pig Baby". For those of you not familiar with Chinese astrology (and I'm no expert!), Georgia was evidently born in a very auspicious year. I first found out about this fact a few days before Georgia was born. My acupuncturist (who was not my regular practitioner) said, "So, you know about the Golden Pig, right?" To which, I said "Umm, no?" Then she proceeded to tell the tale of how my little baby was going to be born in a year that was supposed to be the luckiest year to come along in a long long while. Every 600 years to be exact. And how so many people in China wanted to have a Golden Pig baby more than anything. And here I was going to have one without even meaning to! On the day that I learned these interesting facts, I was about 2 days away from my due date. I was uncomfortable, anxious, worried about my bloodpressure, my firstborn and how my little world was going to be blown off its foundation by the addition of a new little one to my life. I wasn't feeling very happy about pregnancy and childbirth, to say the least. But then, once I had this vision of this sweet, content, happy baby who would be lucky and have a long life, it made me excited to meet this new little person. To see if she really was everything that legend said she was supposed to be. And you know, after a few months of crankiness, teething, figuring out how to sleep and all that crazy stuff, whenever her round little face crinkles into a smile, I think she might just be a little golden pig. But I'm not sure who is luckier, Georgia or me.

Piano man

After the negative nelly post I just wrote, here's something cute for balance.

I'm irritated

I really wish I wasn't bothered by this. I really wish I could let it go. I've been told by Daniel's teacher not to send him in undies to school because last week he had 2 accidents (one each day that he was there) and supposedly he's afraid of the big toilet there. Oh yeah, and "they have a lot going on" and they can't pay attention to everything and don't have time for kids having this many accidents. As someone pointed out to me, if they have so much going on, doesn't that affect other aspects of their care of the children besides potty training? This just doesn't sit well with me. First of all, when I picked him up yesterday he was wearing the same pull up I'd dropped him off in 4 hrs earlier. And it was wet. And, after wearing a "diaper" to school (because that's what it is, no matter if you call it a pull up) he was really resistant to using the toilet at home. Great, thanks so much school. And as far as his fear of "big" potties.... Well, all I have to say is that when we're out and about, the way I get him to sit on a public toilet is to tell him that its a potty just like at school. That puts him totally at ease, so how afraid can he really be? Maybe its the people who're putting him on said toilet. I really want to not be bothered by this. I don't want to be negative about his teacher and school because Daniel can pick up on stuff like that and he really likes school. I don't want to mess with that. All I know is that I've had a couple conversations with his teacher about this subject and no progress is being made. I'm being given the same answers. I'm just not sure what to do.