not that you asked...

Sometimes the PMS runs my whole brain.

Might I recommend making a dozen breakfast burritos for your husband and storing them in the freezer? My ingenious (and way sweeter than me) neighbor does this for her husband, and it sounded like a really good way for me to do something nice for Dave that he would genuinely appreciate, as well as eliminate the whole part of his morning routine where he throws his cereal bowl into the sink for me to put into the dishwasher.

The genius part of this plan is that the burritos are wrapped in foil! And dirty foil doesn't GO in the dishwasher! I WIN!

Honestly, Dave does remember to put his cereal bowl in the dishwasher about 85 percent of the time. It's weird, because I worked for years and years and years to get him to put his cereal bowl into the dishwasher and it turns out that I prefer to do it myself. Because when HE does it, he pours the remnants of the cereal and milk into the sink AND DOESN'T RINSE THEM DOWN THE DRAIN. So a couple of hours later, when I come into the kitchen to start lunch or dinner, the flakes of cereal have dried and CEMENTED THEMSELVES to the sink. I would much rather put a bowl into the dishwasher than spend the better part of 15 minutes chipping a cheery amount of Life cereal out of my sink with a paint scraper.

But wait, back to the burritos for a minute. So I made Dave a bunch of breakfast burritos – I chopped up an onion and a green pepper, threw them in a skillet with around eight eggs and a whole bag of precooked crumbled turkey sausage and scrambled the whole mess together. Then I portioned the eggs out into tortillas, sprinkled some cheese on top, and wrapped them up in foil. Then I put them in the freezer. Dave takes one out every night to defrost, and in the morning he pops it into the toaster oven at 350 degrees for, oh, well frankly, it seems to take FOREVER. This is the one downside of the breakfast burrito: that dang thing occupies the toaster oven for close to THIRTY MINUTES every morning. I think that 30 minutes is probably overkill in the reheating department, but what do I know, I'm eating toast every morning. Actually, I'm NOT eating toast, because there's a BURRITO in the TOASTER OVEN for what feels like AN ETERNITY.

Sorry, off topic AGAIN. (I have PMS, so while it doesn't explain away the tangents, it does possibly help explain the TONE of these tangents, which I assume is coming across as FRUSTRATED.)

So the other evening, I believe as a direct result of all of these delicious burritos and the time and effort I put into making them and keeping my husband happy, Dave – ALL ON HIS OWN – stopped at the grocery store on his way home and picked up a loaf of French bread to go with dinner (points for him knowing what we were having for dinner and also knowing there was no French bread in the house to be served with it and extra EXTRA points for leaving work early to complete this task because that meant he didn't leave me home with the kids for an extra 25ish minutes while he shopped secretly) AND he picked up a bouquet of flowers for me.

Dave does occasionally buy me flowers, but by “occasionally” I mean for our anniversary and maybe, if I am lucky, one other time a year. He will probably disagree with me on that, but I am a woman, and I LIKE getting flowers (not even DELIVERED flowers, just good old cellophane-wrapped grocery store ones), and therefore, I tend to remember when I DO get them. You know what I'm talking about, right? Like, I want him to buy me flowers just because, but it defeats the whole purpose of getting flowers if I have to ASK him to buy me flowers. Am I right? I mean, I don't NEED flowers to feel appreciated and loved, but if someone did BUY them for me for no reason at all except that they were thinking of me and wanted to make me feel good, it would certainly reinforce that appreciation and loving feeling. I do not necessarily feel UNLOVED if I do NOT get flowers. But if I am going to get a nice token of kindness from my husband, I prefer flowers to almost anything else.

Anyway, he got stuck standing in the chatty checkout guy's line at the store. This particular chatty checkout guy has been there for YEARS and he always gives my children lollipops when we leave the store and he always ALWAYS, whether my children are with me or not, hands me an assortment of bite-sized chocolates with a wink. But I guess when MEN go through his line, he takes a different tactic, so when Dave showed up at the register with a loaf of bread and a bouquet of flowers, this guy takes one look at Dave and sighs heavily and goes, “OH NO, what'd you do wrong?”

And the IRONY, oh the SWEET SWEET IRONY, Dave came home all mad and insulted by it. He was all frustrated that immediately people saw him as the bad guy; that holding a bunch of flowers gives you an automatic reputation as the loser who did something crappy to his girlfriend and now has to suck up and apologize. (If you're a guy and you're reading this and you did something crappy to your girlfriend and need to suck it up and apologize, don't go with the carnations from Safeway. FREE ADVICE.)

Anyway, then he said, “I mean, REALLY. Why does everyone think the only reason you can buy flowers is if you get in trouble? Why can't a guy just buy flowers for his wife because he loves her?”

Which is when I thought, HOLD UP THERE, DUDE. You totally stole MY LINE. Indeed, why CAN'T a guy just buy flowers for his wife because he loves her? And by that I mean MORE OFTEN? I have been saying this all along!

(I didn't say it OUT LOUD though – I have SOME tact, and also a desire to get more flowers.) (First I think I will probably have to make more burritos.) (AND IT WILL BE WORTH IT.)

P.S. OMG how great did you guys make me feel about my blanket-eating baby? I LOVE YOU.

The Blankie Issue

Lucy has been getting more... I guess you could say... rigid? Ridiculous? FANTASTICALLY INSANE? when it comes to her blankies. From the time this child was five months old, she has carried a burp cloth everywhere she goes. A burp cloth. Perhaps the only thing lower in fabric status than a burp cloth is a dishrag. Or old worn out men's briefs. We started out with six. Six basic, Gerber-brand burp cloths in pink and purple, which were given to me by a good friend as part of a shower gift before she was born. Lucy was always indiscriminate about which one she had at any given time, as long as she had one. I feel I should stop here and explain that she wasn't just carrying these things around in her hand or anything. She... uh, she stuffs them in her mouth, and she sucks on them.

More on that in a minute.

Anyway, at one point, we lost one, and subsequently realized the magnitude of horror that would befall us all should we happen to lose or misplace five more. So my mom bought more; they weren't EXACTLY IDENTICAL to the first set texture-wise, but they were similar colors and a similar size, and we were all very relieved when Lucy seemed to find them perfectly acceptable. Now we had something like TEN blankies that she would accept, and for a long long time, she accepted any of them, at any given time. Pink? Ok! Purple? FINE! And the thing is, we NEEDED to have upwards of ten blankies, because when Lucy puts them into her mouth, they get soaked and heavy with saliva. AND THEY STINK.

GOD FORBID my child get addicted to something that keeps saliva where it is supposed to be, which is IN THE MOUTH. You know, like a PACIFIER WOULD.

Instead she has these blankies that she keeps in her mouth throughout a nap or a long car ride or ALL NIGHT LONG. And that was never a problem before, because we could easily switch them out and I could wash a bunch of them every other day and call it good. But NOW? Now when I try to switch them out and hand her a fresh one she says, “Uh, where my OTHER blankie?” And we have to have a long discussion about how that blankie is wet and gross and needs to be washed and could she please pick another one for tonight? And eventually she complies but it is sometimes a LONG HARD road to get there, and there is often crying and fussing and big, fat crocodile tears. I have never seen a child who is able to manufacture such enormous tears.

A few nights ago she was complaining from her crib and Dave went up there and she said something about her blankie. He picked her up (IN COMPLETE DARKNESS) and took her to the drawer where we keep all these glorified burp cloths and he watched as she picked up blankie after blankie and TESTED WHICH ONES THEY WERE WITH HER MOUTH. She'd put one in, decide it wasn't the one she was looking for, and pick up another. She did this with five or six blankies until she settled on one, and then she was perfectly happy.

Another night she complained about the blankies and we couldn't figure out WHAT ON EARTH she was talking about so Dave just threw all of them in her bed with her and she shut up about it. I'm pretty sure she slept better than she ever had in her entire life that night, and the next morning we found her like this:

I guess I'm just wondering what other people's experiences have been with lovey objects. It seems like the attachment to these blankies is intensifying rather than petering out, which is what I'd always assumed would happen. And it's weird, because society has this Big Issue with pacifiers, and I know the magic age for giving up pacifiers/looking down on babies who still use them seems to be three (I SAID SOCIETY, NOT ME PERSONALLY), so do blankies fall into this same category? I've heard thumb-sucking is only something you're supposed to worry about when kids turn FIVE. And I'm not really READY for her to give them up yet (she's barely two!) but I am just curious whether her behavior seems to fall in line with other kids' behaviors when it comes to special objects. I guess what I'm asking is, it would take a miracle for her to give these up on her own, wouldn't it. 

Regurgitated eggs look just like regular eggs, to tell you the truth

We bought a car over the weekend! WOOOOO! This is particularly exciting for two reasons: 1) we bought a NEW car (something I haven't done in FIFTEEN YEARS), and 2) IT'S MINE, ALL MINE, TO DRIVE. Dave is now driving the hand-me-down car, our 2003 Honda CR-V, which is still a perfectly acceptable vehicle, though its pretty worn down in the looks and features department. I feel slightly guilty about this, but I know that Dave wants me to drive the new car (we bought it specifically for me, the person who corrals two small children daily) and I am trying to remember that he has been driving the newer/shinier/WITH LEATHER AND HEATED SEATS AND SATELLITE RADIO of our two cars for the last three years. So it's officially my turn, whether or not I feel a lingering guilt over coming into the house with the smell of New Car clinging to my clothes.

(It's a Mazda CX-9, which is the car you buy when you probably should just go ahead and get a minivan but are really hoping to hold on to your dwindling youth for a few more years.) (And it looks just like this.)

Usually I love doing research on big purchases, but in this case, I left most of the decision-making process up to Dave. He ended up finding a great deal online and driving nearly 50 miles away to buy it and I didn't have the least amount of interest in going with him. He bought a car that will belong to me, that will be mine to drive, and I didn't even care to see it before he signed on the dotted line. Part of that is due to the fact that cars aren't really my bag, you know? I drive them, but I don't read magazines dedicated to them or salivate over the fast, expensive ones or know how to repair a carburetor like my husband does. But mostly, I think it was a trust thing. Although we talked through everything together before we made a purchase, I let him make the ultimate decision: New or used? Black or silver? Upgrade to leather and moonroof or save $2000?

It was kind of strange, in a way, to relinquish every single itty bit of power to him, but it was also very freeing. At one point I even said, you know? I don't even care; I just want you to do what you think is right, and whatever that is, I know I'll be fine with it, because I'll know you were thinking of me and what would be best for us. And I completely and totally am. It goes both ways, after all. I relinquished all that power to him, but he didn't take it and run with it and use it to serve himself. He respected me by doing exactly what he thought would benefit and please us both. I love love love it when there are situations in a marriage like this, where he and I are in perfect trust and alignment with a big decision, because I like to look back on it when we're in the middle of a harder situation and remind myself that my husband has always shown that he has my best interests in mind.

It was the same when I enrolled Asher in preschool. Dave and I talked about preschool, and I reviewed options with him and we discussed what we could reasonably spend, but when it came down to making the big decision, I did it all myself. He didn't go with me to an open house, he didn't meet a teacher, he didn't make a phone call or send an email. He believed that I would make the decision that benefitted our family and our child the best, and I feel so honored that he would trust me like that. I mean, don't get me wrong, we don't do this perfectly all the time, but we are working hard at it and it is so awesome to be in a relationship where the other person is really as invested in and respectful towards you as you long to be towards them. Year Eight of marriage is turning into a really good one. (Hand in there, Year Sevens. That one was rough.)

Anyway, so the car was one of the highlights of the weekend – the low point being about 15 minutes after Dave left to go buy the car on Saturday morning, which is when Asher turned to me and made a gurgling sound and then barfed all over the carpet. I was supposed to be hosting a baby shower that morning AND we'd made reservations at a hotel that night an hour away to celebrate birthdays with two other couples. EXCELLENT TIMING, ASHER. It wasn't until he puked that I remembered LAST YEAR'S debacle, when we'd made a hotel reservation for my birthday and had to eat the cost of it because Lucy came down with a 103.5 degree fever and hand, foot and mouth disease that very same morning. HA HA HA KIDS, THIS IS SO FUNNY WITH THE BIRTHDAY RUINING THING. I ended up taking the kids to the baby shower – Asher laid down on the floor of the playroom at my parents' house and watched the entire Toy Story trilogy (in the wrong order, naturally) and thankfully, by the time the shower was over, he was feeling good enough that Dave and I were able to go away after all.

And because we are classy, we went to a casino and race track in West Virginia. It was every bit as awesome as you can imagine it was (SWEATPANTS AND MULLETS EVERYWHERE), and I bet on a horse named Hot and Bothered and won $14 whole dollars. And we fit all six people into our new car to drive to dinner and laughed until our eyes leaked and our sides hurt and it was a pretty freaking awesome weekend and by the end of it I'd almost forgotten what regurgitated eggs on a carpet looked like, anyway.

Eight bazillion photos of my bathrooms, you're welcome

We found out yesterday that Dave's car is officially Totaled, which is such a complete relief. I mean, neither of us would ever EVER wish a car accident on the other person, obviously, but we'd had his car listed for sale for months and it had generated zero interest. I mean that in the most literal sense of the word: we got not one single call. It's hard to explain, though... I'm glad that we don't have to deal with selling that car anymore, and particularly happy that we are going to be paid more money by the insurance company than we could have gotten from a private sale (had we ever made one), but I'm not exactly thrilled that it took a car accident to get us to this point. I'm pretty sure I didn't need to clarify that for you, but there it is.

But then, in all honesty, it is actually kind of nice sometimes when decisions just get made for you. I can't change the fact that there WAS an accident, so now I'm enjoying the fact that we are going to be able to get a newer and more suitable car for our family – and we're going to do it faster and for less money than we had originally planned.

So far the month of January (all 12 days of it; I can't believe we're not even halfway through) has been... well, I'm not even sure what to say. Dave got a big (much-deserved) promotion and a raise. We finally finished the bathroom. We cleaned out the attic. My beloved Auburn Tigers won the National Championship and to celebrate at 12:30am on a Tuesday morning (as I promised my friends on Facebook I would), I ran screaming through my neighborhood wearing nothing but socks and an Auburn flag and asked Dave to record it. I would be HAPPY to post it for you, but first I have to edit it as there was a bit of a wardrobe malfunction before I left the house and Dave caught it on film and it is not safe for anything except blackmailing me out of all my money and dignity.

Did you see that part up there about how we finished the bathroom? So you know I don't have much money to be blackmailed out of, anyway, but you'll still have to wait for the Edited Version.

But to tide you over, how about some photos of the aforementioned Time and Money Suck known as our master bathroom? Before we start, I would like to remind you that we began this epic journey in January of 2010. One whole year ago this month, we tore out the whole freaking bathroom and threw it away bit by bit, as much as the garbage men would take every Tuesday and Friday. Then in February we shopped for stuff like a vanity and a light fixture and a medicine cabinet, which we stored at other people's houses (only for a week or two, was what we told them) and then I went out of town and Dave installed and replumbed (is that a word?) the bathtub and then... [insert sound of gears grinding to a halt].

We didn't do anything for a few months (here's an article I wrote about WHY), until Dave got a friend to come over and help him put up new drywall and cement board, and then for a few months after that, Dave would go into the bathroom for a few hours every Saturday and, to the best of my knowledge, sand the walls. He sanded the walls forever, you guys. Always with the sanding. The background noise of my weekends was always scratcy paper on drywall. Tools were everywhere, all over our entire bedroom – I was being impaled by screwdrivers on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night- and he wasn't using any of them except sheets of sandpaper. And I stopped cleaning because every time I cleaned anything, he'd go back in there and sand something (SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS HE SANDING FOR THREE STRAIGHT MONTHS) and there would be a fresh coat of dust over everything in the upstairs level of the house.

Yes. Yes, indeed, it did drive me BONKERS.

But now that it's over, I can tell you it was absolutely, 100 percent worth it.

Let's start with some before photos. Technically these pictures are of the bathroom we renovated in 2006, but it was identical to the master bath, except that the master bath was painted blue and was much, much dirtier. Keep in mind that we haven't put in all the finishing touches in the after photos - I'll be adding a towel bar and some decorative accents when I find them.

BEFORE:

AFTER:








(Also, HOW AWESOME IS MY HUSBAND?)

For comparison purposes, here's how the 2006 renovation of the hall/kids' bath turned out (some of you long-time readers might remember it):

Welcome, 2011!

I had big plans to Start Blogging More in 2011 and now it's already, what, January 6? How did that happen? Granted, we've had what one might call a “full” week.

For starters, the kids were acting like they were actively petitioning to be sent to boarding school. Asher is testing limit after limit after limit and finally last night, we'd had Enough and he was taught a lesson. It wasn't pretty. It was NECESSARY, but it wasn't pretty. My grandmother always said not to make a big deal out of anything unless someone was bleeding, and I try to remember that, but we are no longer dealing with small irritations like demanding certain cups or throwing fits over wearing coats. The Cassee family draws the line at things like, well for starters, screaming NO in your parents' faces when they ask you to do something very very reasonable, like wipe the yogurt you spilled off the table so you can stop freaking out that there's yogurt on the table. It got unpleasant, but I am proud of my husband. As much as I hated watching that entire scene play out, he chose to make a point and then he chose to win. It took 45 minutes and at one point Asher had to actually take a PEE BREAK, but Dave won. HE WON. It started with yogurt and it ended with sweet, sweet victory. I cannot take any credit for anything except running upstairs with Lucy and hiding.

Of course, the kid thing is a Major Stresser, but so was the fact that we've had contractors in the house all day Tuesday and Wednesday tiling our bathroom. The kids and I spent both days at my parents' house, which is the best place to get stuck if you can't be in your own house, but being away – even for two days – doesn't make the chores stop piling up. There was still a dishwasher to run, and laundry to do, and dinners to make and the house was coated in a fine layer of dust from the tile saw.

But, again, SMALL VICTORIES, because our master bathroom now has a tub and a tiled tub surround and a tile FLOOR. This weekend Dave will be painting and installing the vanity and toilet and we will have a functional second bathroom for the first time in a year. Pictures and details when we get that bad boy finished, I promise. (IT LOOKS AWESOME.)

And for those of you who aren't following along on Twitter, there was the MINOR DETAIL of this:

We don't know all the details yet, but we're pretty sure that thing is totaled and we'll be shopping for a new car sometime next week. Someone from the insurance agency called Dave and asked if there was any damage to the bumper or headlights. We found that HILARIOUS.

Dave was turning left on a green arrow (in his Honda Accord coupe) when he was hit almost head-on by a Lexus SUV. Everyone was fine (Dave was a little sore and stiff for the next few days but nothing crazy) and I KNEW he was fine because he'd called me right after the accident happened and told me about it but even with that knowledge, even after hearing his voice and being assured he was completely and totally FINE, I still wasn't prepared to see that car in that kind of shape at the scene. I drove past and my stomach knotted up and I found myself clutching at my chest and just started sobbing. And I pulled behind the police car that was blocking the lane for cleanup and I wasn't sure whether I should park there and I was kind of shifting my car into drive and then reverse and then drive and then reverse just totally unsure where I should put the stupid thing and finally I just left it behind the cop car with the caution lights on and climbed out and announced shakily to the officer that “That's my husband's car” and then Dave kind of appeared out of nowhere and I don't know if you've ever had a “I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SURVIVED THAT” hug? I mean, I wouldn't recommend you try to arrange one, but there is absolutely nothing like it in the world. I felt like time just stood still while we stood in the bitter cold in the middle of a four-lane road with cars whizzing by and held each other and thought about what could have happened. We are so, so lucky.

Weirdly enough, one of our friends from high school (who we haven't seen for a couple of years) was in the car behind Dave when the accident happened, so he was standing on the side of the road and I was all, “Oh my gosh, it's so good to see you, thank you for stopping” and he hugged me and then I cried all over him, too. So, uh, SORRY CHRIS.

Anyway, 2011. SEND WINE. At least I'll be able to drink it in my new bathtub!