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When you’re a kid and you’re sick, you stay home from school. If you’re lucky, your mom makes you chicken soup and lime jello and you get to sit on the couch all wrapped up in blankets watching whatever crap television you want.

When you’re grown up and you get sick, you call in to work and stay home. You heat up your own chicken soup and decide it’s too much work to make lime jello, and you’d rather stay in bed with trashy magazines that sit on the couch watching television.

When you’re the mom and you get sick, you get up early and feed the baby and dress the baby and play with the baby and pray for naps to be good and, if you’re lucky, you count the minutes until someone else comes home so that you can go collapse. Because Mamas don’t get sick days.

There is only one thing I can think of that’s more frustrating than finding a bug in my FTP program that means that my entire website gets deleted when I only mean to delete one file.

Finding the bug at 1am. Three times in a row. Because apparently I am S-L-O-O-O-W.

Thank God for backups, and good night.

I swear, this is not going to be the housework blog! But I need help, here.

See, we have dogs. Two of them. We love our dogs! We do not love muddy pawprints all over the floor. Unfortunately, that’s what we have. No matter how well we try to wipe their paws when they come in, they track mud all over the floor. Because of the crawling issue, that means that we’ve had to confine the dogs to the family room for huge chunks of time so that the mud stays in one place.

We’ve tried towels. We’ve tried wet cloths. It seems like the only way to keep the mud out of the house is to keep the dogs out of the house, which just isn’t an option. We don’t want to keep the dogs inside all the time, either - the biggest reason we bought this house is the big backyard that the dogs have to run around in. I hate watching them sit at the back door wanting to go out and making them stay inside because I just don’t want to deal with the dirt.

So, other dog-having people, what do you do? Do you just live with the dirt? (Like we did pre-crawling-baby?) Do you only let the dogs out when you can walk them? (On pavement, thus scrubbing the mud off of the paws?) Something else that magically makes it all shiny and good that I just cannot figure out for myself? Share!

After almost a year, I’m finally feeling like I’m keeping up with Abby. I remember to feed her before she’s starving, she gets her naps, her laundry gets done…we even get time to play on a regular basis. With her, we’ve got it covered. How did I manage to get her schedule under control, you ask? Why, I let everything else in the house slip, of course! The mail piles up for days (or weeks). The clean dishes sit in the dishwasher until they all get used. The house gets cleaned…well, when the cleaning service comes.

Yes, I gave in. I like to think that if I weren’t trying to work I’d be able to keep the house clean myself, but every naptime and for a few hours after bedtime at night, I’m at the computer trying to bring in some cash. After about my third bout of hysterical sobbing in a week, I realized that getting someone else in here to give the house a good cleaning every couple of weeks isn’t some admission of failure on my part; it’s just common sense. I don’t have time to clean the house and, say…sleep. Or shower.

And you know what? The feeling I had when they left here after cleaning for the first time was better than Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one. The hosue was clean. I could let Abby crawl around anywhere she wanted (you know, that she was allowed anyway) and not worry about what grime was being ground into her delicate baby skin. I could take a bath! The kitchen counter practically glowed.

If only they’d do all the laundry, sort the mail and pay the bills, too.

Sometimes it’s about all I can handle…this one has been around for awhile, but I swiped it from Sarah at ClubMom. Items in bold are the ones I’ve done. What have you done?

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa.
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper (only a few hundred times)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends - still do
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken 
69. Toured an ancient site
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played Dungeons & Dragons for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an ‘expert’
83. Got flowers for no reason
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently well enough to have a decent conversation
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised (raising) children (child)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad
135. Selected one ‘important’ author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life
151. Finished a marathon

Abby is a pretty content baby, at this point in her life. I thought I’d never be able to say that—so many months of colic, crying, and misery we went through. I still find myself a little surprised to be able to agree when someone points out what a happy baby she is. But she is; she smiles at just about everyone and is usually happy to sit and observe the world, or crawl and explore when she can.

But that’s it. She has shown no sign at all that she’d like to move beyond crawling and hanging out. Standing? Eh, okay. She’ll lean on me or on her piano table for a few minutes, but she never really initiates it herself. She’s happy to pull up onto her knees and stay there. She won’t walk with someone holding her hands, and doesn’t seem interested at all in cruising. Even her crawling is still on the slow side and prone to…interruption. It’s easy to seem laid-back about it…all kids develop at their own pace, and she’s definitely ahead of others her age in some areas. When she’s ready, she’ll do it. I know that.

On Saturday afternoon she was crawling around the kitchen while we were all in there, and she was over by the gate to the family room. I looked over and what did I see? A very cute little downward-facing dog! Two hands, two feet, and nothing else touching the ground. I think we may have scared her a little with our cheering; she hasn’t done it again since. At least we know that she can do it. It’s only a matter of time.

Today was a really bad day. Abby’s ear infection had her up half the night last night, and she flatly refused to nap today in spite of the fact that she was so tired she could hardly sit up. She finally (about 11pm) fell asleep after I’d put her down almost three hours ago. All she did all day long was cry, cry, cry. Not just crying, but alternating between the whiny, grating cry and the all-out screaming of misery.

Probably the best thing I can say about the day is that I did manage to get out to vote. I hope you did, too.

My poor baby woke up this morning unhappy, and the day was pretty much downhill from there. Abby is generally a happy camper when she wakes up; she’ll play and babble for awhile before she starts emitting the sounds of impatience, wondering what the heck is taking the rest of the party so long to arrive. So when she wakes up unhappy, it’s almost always a bad sign.

When we went in to get her from her crib, it was obvious why she was unhappy. She was burning up with fever - almost 102 degrees already and not even 7am. She nursed for almost an hour and ate a decent breakfast, but after that all she wanted was to be held. She’d drift off to sleep in my arms, but would wake up within minutes of going down her crib. By noon, her temp was up to almost 103 and it was off to the pediatrician.

Yep, another ear infection. I don’t know whether to be glad that this one actually came with symptoms or not - I hate that she’s feeling so miserable. Even though the Tylenol has been helping a little, she’s still not herself, and she knows it. It’s so sad to watch her try to play and just not be able to enjoy it, and see her little face grimace in pain and confusion. Like pretty much any parent, I’d take the pain for her in a heartbeat if I could. I can’t, though, so I do the next best thing - pay the copay and get the prescription and say a little prayer that it works fast. And take advantage of the cuddles while we wait.

Continuing the lazy stream of babyproofing around here, I was cleaning out the pile of assorted books, magazines and other accumulated crap under the table in the nursery. In bygone days (back whole weeks ago now), I got most of my reading and magazine surfing done while we were nursing. Four to eight times a day, I had anywhere from half an hour to an hour of quiet, peaceful time to catch up on gossip, find out what the cool kids were up to, enjoy whole novels, and cram for the parenting test.

Well, those days are so over now, what with the current “monkey crawling” method of nursing that Abby’s currently enjoying. I figured I should see what was abandoned down there - just in case there was anything of interest. Well, I learned that apparently I gave up on what I should know to get Abby through her first year long about month three. There were two different books that promised me the week-by-week playbook to what we’d be learning and doing, and I just skipped out on them!

What was I thinking?! How could I just abandon my daughter’s development to fate like that? What if there was some crucial skill that I’ve neglected to nurture? Some critical lesson I’ve failed to impart?

Then I flipped through them and remembered why I stopped reading them. After months of reading about how my precious (colicky) sunshine (screaming nonstop ‘round the clock) baby should be sleeping (oh? what’s that?) long, blissful stretches (like maybe an hour or two? finally? or six whole hours total out of twenty-four?) if only I was properly guiding her schedule (sleep, or eat, or dear lord ANYTHING but SCREAM, please no no no no…fine, here’s another boob just please don’t scream anymore!) I realized that either I was doing absolutely everything wrong or the books were a load of crock.

I voted crock. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but since we’ve all survived so far and are reasonably happy and healthy, I’m okay with that. I didn’t give up…I was just fed up.

We have been moderately happy satellite television subscribers for a few years now, but Thursday found the cable installer at the house switching us back over to cable. To say I have mixed feelings about the switch would be a major understatement - I’ve actually been very happy with satellite, barring a few bizarre programming blackout issues, and everything has worked fine 99.9% of the time.

So why are we switching? Because of our phone bill. Yes, it is exactly as complicated as it sounds.

See, we’ve been using satellite for the television and DSL for our internet. Because of (insert long-winded complex explanations that I personally think are code for “because you’re getting screwed”), this has required that we maintain two separate phone lines. So…add up two phone lines, one DSL bill, plus the satellite bill…even without extra services and long distance phone calls, we were paying out over $220 a month for all that. Now that we’re down to one “real” income - and not a whole lot of time in front of the tube anyway - we just can’t justify that kind of dough.

The cable company, though, was having a promotion to try to convince satellite users that cable doesn’t really suck as much as it does, and will give us their top-of-the-line package for around $30 a month. Add about $15 to that and we also get actual HD programming (that we would have had to spend hundreds upgrading our satellite dish to get) so now we can actually watch HD on our HDTV. For $20 more we get our internet thrown in, too. We cancel our second phone line, and now our grand total is more like $80 a month.

I have to remind myself - repeatedly - that saving that much money is a very, very good thing. Necessary, required, good, wonderful thing. Because the cable? SUCKS. The interface is horrific, the functionality of their DVR is a joke, and it sort of hates trying to play nice with our beloved TiVos. Not to mention that we haven’t yet figured out how to make the TiVo work in happy harmony with the HDTV set and still let us watch HDTV straight through the cable box. We’d better figure that out pretty soon, though, or I will go sort of crazy.

All I really want is an HDTV feed to my HDTV that will show me the shows I want to see, right when I want to see them. Commercial-free, with a pretty interface that works. Is that really so much to ask?