Shhhh...IT!

Literally.

I can add this blog entry as it doesn't require photos (thankfully) and Katie is in her third hour of nap. (must be jet lag from England...)

Came home last night to the welcoming sight of dog shit. No, no, my fancy plastic fencing around the front grass is not failing. The dog is now just shitting on our driveway. Thanks.
The ironic thing is that now that I am trying to grow a plant in the grass, I just scooped the poop and tossed it into the grass. Maybe I should take down the fence and eliminate the middleman.

On a related subject, I believe George W. said it best when he said, "Fool me once, shame on you....uh..duh....ya fool me, ya can't get fooled again!"

Well, I did get fooled again. Had Katie downstairs on the tile (thank god) and she was just in her diaper. So she squats down and grunts, face turning red. No surprise as to what is occurring under wraps, but, when she stands back up, a corn puff that I guess had been wedged in between her diaper and belly popped out onto the floor and I did a double take thinking she had just pooped an intact snack. After finishing my laugh which led to katie's belly laugh which led to laughing so hard we had tears, I put her down on her changing mat and proceeded to change the dirty diaper. She has had some diaper rash so I decided to let her go al fresco for a while. A few moments later, "ppfffft, ahhhh" She actually sighed after farting. What a sign of the little lady she is to become! But that had us laughing again. I guess I was laughing too much to learn a lesson. What does a fart like to precede? yup.

I looked at my naked baby on the floor, confused as to what she was sitting on. I could see something between her legs and as I circled her, saw it was also coming from behind. No, correct that, it was coming from her behind.

Manus was laughing at this point but I no longer was. I was yelling at him to not "just stand there, get a friggin paper towel!!" The hilarity of the moment was lost on the poor man when he realized that, yes, I did want him to clean it up. "and scrub that grout.. Its not supposed to be brown!"

To quote Bob Dylan's famous hit, "How many times must the crapp'n balls fly before bare is forever banned?"

And lastly on this fabulous topic, I really have been working on my potty mouth as Katie is entering the stage of mimicry, but I was wondering, is there such thing as potty brain? Is it okay to think, "mother fucking shit on a fucking crapper!" if I only say, "golly- gosh darnit that sure is a shame"?

The Mom Chronicles. Chapter 2

My retelling of the Laura visit has been temporarily halted. I am awaiting a signed release agreement from two parties; Laura Rice and Jessica Shamer. Without their consent I will be unable to continue with the trip details. Contact your local congressmen or pressure your aforementioned family members to allow the truth to be told.

I would however like to take this opportunity to share another precious parenting moment from yesterday. But first, did I mention that it is raining today? Oh yeah, it is. Shocking for Ireland, I know, but as I have now become an absolute expert on precipitation, I can say definitively that IT IS RAINING. AGAIN.

Yesterday Katie and I had a date with Nana and her very good friend Kay O'Connell. Katie rose from her nap at two, our date was at three. A quick lunch before we head out the door. I gave Katie a variety of finger foods as I needed to run a cool iron over the dress she was to wear. Nana bought Katie this dress. It is Parisian, from Paris, and it is BEAUTIFUL. She'd worn it a time or two previously and it was wrinkled beyond even my lax acceptable level. At one point I'd run up the stairs for something and Manus, having just gone downstairs with Katie, shouted up to me to bring down the camera. Me, thinking Katie was doing something incredible and picture-worthy but unfortunately dressed in a boring white tee, yelled back, "why?"
"I want to get a picture of you ironing, 'cause no one will ever believe it. You could put it on your blog!" I politely responded that he could just F-off and there is no way I will now EVER iron anything of his (like I would have anyway, but now there is a quality excuse of my indignance.*) and, why would I ever implicate myself on my lack of homemaking skills on my own blog?! THAT would just be silly.

Par for the course, I have strayed from topic.

Katie has finished her meal and I, my ironing, so I grab a few bites of delicious homemade leftover extra garlic-y garlic toast carbonara. (made carbonara sauce for pasta, ran out of pasta so loaded the remaining sauce onto the few pieces of leftover garlic bread- omg... talk about buttery deliciousness!) Katie looked longingly at me as I ate so, reasoning that the PEAS in the sauce are healthy, I gave her a few spoonfuls. She loved it too.

We got dressed and loaded into the car. Had to go out to Desart to pick up Nana as her car was in the shop. I think I've described the drive out to Desart before, but if not, quick description: It is an old country road, planned long before the advent of the automobile and though maybe repaved once since, not widened since horse and carriage. No. Not once. I tell people you know you are getting close to the house by how narrow the road gets. When you, a lone car can only barely drive through the thicket with only a few stray branches scratching your paint, turn left cause you are there. (and this functions as a two-way road). Well, THAT is the "good" road and that one was closed off, so we had to go the back way. Apparently back in the old days people didn't believe in "straight". The tale goes that the Irish planned out their roads so the wind was always at their backs. Well, they planned this one during a hurricane.

Back out on the main road and on our way to Kay's. We take the "ring road" that goes around the town to avoid traffic. Ring roads, as with most Irish roads, use the roundabout system. We were going a complete 180 degrees around the city so needless to say, we rounded 'bout lots.
Do you see what I'm getting at here? We were twisting and turning this way and that. On the last leg of the ring road Katie starts to make faces I'd never seen before. I said, look! She's winking. Look! She is holding her breath. Look! She is rubbing her face. Look! She is turning red. Look! She is barfing her brains out. I was driving, so only turning my head for seconds at a time, but time stood still as molten lava spewed from Mt. Kathryn. I pulled off the road immediately but it was too late. Without going into unnecessary detail, I will just recount what Katie had for lunch; slice of turkey, cheese stick, banana, grapes, and recall, garlic toast carbonara complete with peas.

And apparently, Katie doesn't do a lot of chewing when she eats. The contents retained their original shape and texture. Aside from the banana mush which bound everything else together. I will never look at Campbell's chunky soups the same way again.

Nana holds on to Katie on the side of the road while I look for something to contain the mess. First off, do I have a change of clothes for her? Noooo. Rookie mistake, but I was thinking, we are just going for tea and Katie's already done her morning constitutional. Okay, how about a towel or shirt or anything to clear off the big chunks? Nooo. Okay, wipes. Got wipes. Got... 3 wipes. shit. I took out the car seat completely so as to tip it over in the grass and then realize that the bulk of the 'matter' has slid down INTO the seat (where the waist strap come out from the side). I wipe -er, smear- as much as I can off of Katie and the seat and then off Nana and myself and we hold our breath with the windows down for the rest of the trip.

When we got home I stripped off Katie, clothes to the laundry and Katie to the bath. I removed the car seat from the car, sat it on the kitchen floor and removed the cloth cover, threw it in the washer and tried to jimmy out the remnants from within the seat with everything from a washcloth to the end of a spoon. Manus comes downstairs at this point and says, "Ugh! This place smells like puke! Gross!" Thanks for offering the helping hand, Captain Obvious.

I didn't want to risk shrinking the car seat cover, so instead of tossing it into the dryer when it was done washing, I hung it out on the clothesline. Remember when I mentioned before that it's been raining all day? yep. that's right.

I regale you with this story today, not only because it just happened yesterday, but because today, June...26th (?) is a day that will go down in Katie history.

Katie took her first few steps today.

Applaud if you like, Manus and I certainly did.

Katie, and the dress, both on better days....

*indignance. (n.d.). Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. Retrieved June 26, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/indignance

Things Are Different Here (part III)

A while back I told you about Manus' uncle Ger coming from England for a weekend visit. Before he left, he gave Katie a few books for her birthday. One of them is a collection of stories that seem to have included many of the classics like Little Jack Horner, Yankee Doodle, Roses are Red...

Then there was this one.

And I thought to myself... Boy. Things are really different here.
And its not only that word that is totally socially acceptable here. It is customary, in fact perhaps even compulsory to incorporate the F-word into every statement. Form doesn't matter; it can be used as an exclamation, verb, noun or adjective. Apparently you get bonus points for multiple uses in a single sentence. Get Manus and his brother talking about the hurling team and you will hear some permutation of "That F-all so-in-so couldn't hit the F-en ball with 2 F-en hurls so he can just F-off for F's sake" every time.

Cunt.

Cunt is not a bad word here. I don't even like typing the word, though by Irish ordinances I am well within my legal right to do so. I believe it is still a slightly derogatory term, but for example, if you were addressed as "ya stupid 'C', ya" for a minor driving faux pas, you shouldn't be offended.

Now, oddly enough, the word "fanny" as in the children's story "My Sister Fanny" as read aloud by Billy Madison in 1995, is very vulgar. You would make old women blush if they heard you say it on the street.

Like I said, things are different here..... Or so I thought...

My cousin Elissa gave me this book before we left called "Games to Play with Baby".

I don't think "listening skills" are all baby will learn if I teach her how to ride...

We need a little inspiration from Whitney at a time like this. She knows how to teach our children and let them lead the way. Is she out of rehab yet?

P.S. I passed my driver theory test. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Speechless

I spoke to one of the assessment officers today from the Irish Nursing Board and he explained to me the problems they are having with my credentials to register me to work in Ireland.

As I understand it, the EU and Ireland specifically do not have an exam like the US's Nursing Boards which, upon passing you are licensed to work and recognized as "meeting the minimum standard to provide safe care". Here, you pass your school classes, you are a nurse. So, my registering with their country is completely based on my education.

And apparently, not even so much on how well I did in school, but how well my school did me. When they asked the almightly MDCC how many hours of theoretical study I received in nursing the reply was 368 and hours of clinical practice is 736. Hell.. that sounds fantastic, right?

An Bord Altranais (Irish Nursing Board), as apparently dictated by somewhere within the EU, requires minimums of 1533 and 2300 in theory and clinical practice.

So barring some miracle of number crunching as I work to gather my continuing education credits, talking to Baptist about documenting my hours as a preceptee and MAC training courses, I'm not going to be a nurse in Ireland.

HOW FUCKING CRAZY IS THAT?

I mean, ask anyone in the nursing education system of the US and they will tell you that nursing school is just to lay the foundation for your learning and just to give you enough knowledge so you don't KILL someone on your first day of work.

I have an unblemished work record of 5 years. I haven't even killed one person! That should count for something.

To hear this man today speak, and I must say he was very nice and said he was doing what he could, but it seems as though cases will not be taken into consideration individually, either you have the numbers or not.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I guess I'm not exactly speechless on the subject. Just most thoughts I have on it are filled with profanity.

So, thats it in a nutshell. I am currently taking suggestions for alternate careers. Which, in this country (oh, you've done it now - don't get me started on the work situation here...) is going to be extremely limited as you take a series of tests at the end of 'high school' which determines what you will study in university which determines what you will do for the rest of your life. There is no such thing as changing your mind. I couldn't even go and apply to nursing school here.

So, think of all the best minimum wage jobs you've had in your life and recommend one for me. - No, don't say secretary or "administrative assistant" (though I've already been a few of those) because they require formal education too which is not available to me.

Tuesday = NoNewsDay

Hi Everyone.

Mom wanted me to drop a line to let you know that she is not feeling well today and doesnt want to write a blog. I mean, she is fine physically, but we went to the grocery store today and she couldnt find any baking soda, which maybe was there but is called something completely different and not kept beside the baking powder (which everyone knows is where it belongs) and that sent her off on a "where's all the damn american shit when you need it?" rant and it was all I could do to keep her from stopping at the McDonalds on the way home for a pity party. ( I reminded her that like everything else, the Big Mac would probably LOOK the same but taste weird and maybe they would call it a Royale with Cheese.... she cried a little at that point.)

So anyway, we got our satelite tv set up today so mom is going to veg out and look for 90210 reruns.

She might be back tomorrow.