Doug the Distance Runner

"We'll get a nurse maid."

Doug

Re: Possible Fall Work Trip

 

 

I've had my suspicions of Doug's new workplace since this doozy last Summer but after the latest story he came home with, I wonder about the long-term lasting effects this place is going to have on him.

 

Back at the New Year, Doug gave up soda for the umpteenth time and decided to start training again for a marathon come this May.  Because of these dietary changes he is now drinking a ton of water and obviously taking multiple trips to the Little Boys' room. This past Friday at work he was in the restroom washing his hands (probably for the 25th time that day), when Guy* (real name) approached him at the sink.

 

*(Disclaimer: Guy is easily a 350-pound man who limps and was recently diagnosed with diabetes.)

 

G: "You sure use the restroom a lot." (am I the only one that finds it weird that a grown man said this to another grown man? anyone? Bueller?)

D: "Oh yea, it's because I drink about 30 glasses of water a day."

G: "Well you should be careful about that and go to the doctor. I thought the same exact thing until the doctor gave me a surprise diagnosis of diabetes."

 

Then Doug, trying to get the hell out of the restroom as quickly as possible, cut his hand-washing ritual short and mumbled something along the lines of, "Well I have to keep myself hydrated for my running" and scampered back to his desk.

 

Few things to note on this exchange.
 

1. Doug is lucky to weigh a buck fifty soaking wet.

2. A man named Guy, who is morbidly obese, was surprised to find out he had diabetes.
3. Guy may or may not be losing a toe in the near future.

Good old Doug.

Captain Poo and the Case of the Missing Diaper

"Riley, you can't get all wild and crazy while holding an open container."

Doug

 

 

It's funny how the minute you announce the sex of your baby-to-be the horror stories seem to come out of the woodwork. With Riley, I mostly heard gross boy stuff;. how we was going to be perpetually filthy, constantly on the go and how during the younger years, we would rack up hours upon hours in emergency room visits.

 

One story that stuck with me was when I was told by a friend (who has a couple of boys) that she used to have to duct-tape the boys' diapers when she put them down for naps.

 

"Why would you ever do that?" I asked apprehensively.

"To prevent them from taking their diapers off and writing on the walls with their own poo," she replied.

 

In my mind I brushed it off and made Rookie Mom Mistake #1. I uttered the following words out loud, "Oh my son will never do that."

 

Fast forward two years later and during yesterday's nap time I am greeted by Riley in all of his infinite glory. Duct tape doesn't sound like such a bad idea after all.

 

***************************

Since moving to Denver, Riley was placed in a Spanish immersion daycare and for months now he comes home rambling about stuff that I just plain old don't understand. When he is speaking, Doug and I both smile and nod at him and hope to hell that we aren't inflicting permanent damage on his sponge-like brain. It doesn't help matters that we were also asked by his daycare provider to stop trying to speak in Spanish to Riley because our Spanish is so bad (touche).

 

So a few weeks ago he started to become really verbal and every few minutes we would hear, "I do that." over and over, and over, again. It really didn't make sense because he would say it when he was trying to do something or just plain couldn't do something, but as parents we didn't seem to care because we got all wrapped up in the notion that he was stringing words together (although grammatically incorrect they were still words). This carried on for a while and then one day I was picking him up from school and he was trying to zip up his jacket and exclaiming, "I do that! I do that! I do that!"

 

"You know what he is saying don't you?" asked Mariana, Riley's daycare provider.

 

I shook my head no because I didn't want to admit out loud that I thought my son was being taught improper English and here his father and I were doing absolutely nothing to correct it.

 

"He is asking for help. It's 'ayudar' in Spanish,"  she exclaimed.

 

Oh. My. God. Ayudar. I-do-that. It all started to make perfect sense now.

 

*Sigh*

 

 

 

Birthday Blues

"You look really good pregnant."

Doug

Re: How do I look when I am not prego?

 

 

Parenting is clearly not for the faint of heart. About a month ago I found out that I would be traveling for work on Riley's birthday so of course I was forced to swallow a large bitter pill of major guilt. That being said, I did try my hardest to make sure that my nearest and dearest's second birthday was the absolute best birthday possible.

• Little Tikes Cozy Coupe: check
• Visit from Gigi: check
• Homemade (thanks Gigi) Texas Sheet Birthday cake: check
• Birthday celebration at daycare: check

While I didn't expect a standing ovation for my efforts I was certainly surprised from the response I got from cranky pants R-Dub.

Life of the party.

Riley's birthday celebration at daycare was this past Friday and I couldn't have been more excited. Who wouldn't have a good time with cream-filled cupcakes, balloons, annoying party favors and of course your run-of-the-mill party decorations?

I walk in the door to a table filled with little people and Riley starts to immediately scream at the top of his lungs. His daycare provider Mariana (god bless her) says, "Weird, he just started doing this after we told him you were coming." Of course he did.



Coming around, but don't expect
eye contact.

So I try to wave hello and get ignored. I attempt to take pictures and get the lovely ear-to-shoulder trick that he started demonstrating a few weeks ago. I then make the rookie mistake of trying to talk to him and get, "All done Mama, bye-bye, adios, night night."  He essentially (in his 2-year-old vocabulary) just told me to f*** off and call me crazy, but I expected that behavior from 14-year-old Riley and not 2-year-old Riley.

I continue to take pictures, shed a few tears out of humiliation (and most likely pregnancy hormones), and begin to wonder how in the hell I am ever going to survive his teenage years. Then just like that, the cupcakes are handed out and Riley's cloud of funkiness dissipates. He still won't acknowledge my presence (or existence for that matter), but he does manage to blow out his candles (struggled with the last one) and shove an entire cupcake into his mouth. Good times for a 2-year-old.

Twenty minutes later he grabs my hand as we are leaving and heading out to the car and I take a deep breath and think to myself, "Okay I can do this." No permanent damage done. You just have to shake it off and move on to the next.

This Friday we find out the sex of bebe 2. Let's hope it's a boy, cause I am not sure I am cut out to mother a daughter.

Old Hag Nag

"So I was just calling you to tell you that I read your blog and thought it was funny, but there's a typo in it that you probably want to fix."

Doug

Re: My biggest fan/critic

Don't you all remember watching your parents when you were a kid and promising yourself that your marriage would be different? There are moments where I realize I have become my mother and I hang my head in shame. Doug hates to be nagged and after hearing "Death by Lecture" stories from his childhood, I have tried to make a conscious effort to be cognizant of those feelings. Tried being the operative word here.

Last week I may have failed in this endeavor. Sensing that Doug was about to go down to the basement with Riley and get him ready for school, I asked, "Hey Doug, could you plug in the iron for me when you go downstairs?"

And just because I am aware of his forgetfulness, I may or may not have asked him the same question an additional five times -- just to be safe. I even went so far as to ask him again right when he picked up Riley and started heading downstairs. Surely he wouldn't forget, right?

Fast forward 10 minutes later and I am bringing my clothes downstairs to iron them before leaving for work. Was the iron plugged in? Of course not.

"Hey Doug, I know you get annoyed when I nag you about stuff, but I asked you at least half a dozen times to plug in the iron and you still managed to forget."

Silence.

"Doug?"

I look over and he and Riley are sitting on the couch watching a riveting episode of the Cat in Hat on PBS.

"Doug?"

"Oh, sorry Amanda. Riley and I just really got into this episode."

*Sigh*

Weekly Rant

"This second pregnancy has been much harder on me then the first."

Doug

Re: Sure it has

 

 

So for anyone that lives under a rock or avoids social media at all costs, Doug and I announced last week that we are going to have bebe #2 come the beginning of July. My PTSD from the first go-around has come back with full force and I hope and pray this bebe doesn't destroy my girl bits and hopefully takes to the boob a lot easier then Riley ever did.

 

Stay tuned.

 

This past weekend the family ventured out to the outlet malls in Castle Rock and during the drive I am convinced we were sucked into some sort of vortex that spit us out into the Time that Land Forgot. I was checking out at Banana Republic and was fortunate enough to witness the following exchange:

 

Plain Jane Shopper: "Hi, I would like to return these pants."

BR Employee: "Certainly, do you have a receipt?"

PJS: "I don't, they were bought quite a long time ago."

BRE: "No problem, I can search the system and we can go from there."

 

15 minutes later the BRE is still searching and the checkout line is 20+ people deep. Finally a manager gets involved and the story starts to cook.

 

BR Manager: "Mam, it appears these pants are from 2007 and we cannot return them for you since the store no longer sells them."

PJS: Stonewall expression. Says absolutely nothing because this biatch certainly knows she was trying to pull a fast one over on the store and just got called out on it.

BRM: "The only thing I could do for you at this point is offer you $1 per pair of pants in store credit."

PJS: Contemplative expression. Most likely wondering how her foolproof plan failed.

 

Unfortunately at this point we had to walk out of the store because we were through checking out. I would have paid money to see how this exchange ended because who in their right mind attempts to return pants from 2007?

 

Doug giggled throughout the entire ordeal and as we are walking away said, "2007 is soooo long ago. That was the year when we got married." Okay Doug, whatever it takes for you to wrap your brain around that story is just fine by me.

 

Ten minutes later we are standing in the checkout line at the Gap and there is a 45-year-old toothless man wearing head to toe camo attempting to return a shirt that the Gap had never even sold before.

 

God bless the world of retail.

Hudson

Since becoming parents to an actual human child, it has become abundantly clear to both Doug and I that mistakes were made early on in our dog ownership. Looking back there was never a reason to purchase clothing for them, we definitely never needed to buy a bag to carry them around in and shame on us for ever treating them like babies. Well, for the first time ever yesterday they finally earned their keep around the Eldridge household and will definitely be rewarded with a few extra scoops of kibble for the next few weeks.

 

Don't let Zoe's size fool you. Evil genius.

I got a call at work that our alarm was going off at home and was asked if I could meet the officers in order to make sure that no one was in fact breaking in. I immediately started sweating, swallowed down a dry heave and hopped in my car hoping for the best but fearing for the worst.

 

Long story short: Someone did get into our house from a side patio door that was left unlocked. By the time they entered our kitchen, the alarm either starting blaring or they were frightened away by the bark of two ferocious guard dogs. I like to think that both happened, but either way all that was taken was a checkbook from our kitchen counter.

 

Don't ever let people tell you that Pomeranians aren't worth their hassle.

Dutiful Doug

I appreciate the idea of Doug unloading the dishwasher, but not sure if I actually appreciate it when he does unload the dishwasher.

Moronic Matriarch

"I plan on having a sophisticated audience."

Doug

 

"Okay Frasier."

Amanda

 

Re: Doug's stand-up routine.

 

Surely I am not the only parent out there that had high hopes for their kid's Christmas presents?

ie: I just gave you some great gifts can you please leave me alone for five minutes?

 

Now that we are almost a month out I can officially say Christmas was a bust. Shame on me for thinking a two-year old toddler would prefer to stick his head in a fake oven rather then our real one.

 

Earlier in the summer we went over to a neighbor's house that had this kitchenette from Ikea and Riley was obsessed with it so of course we thought Santa could do no wrong by leaving that under the tree. If we are lucky, Riley averages about five minutes a day playing with it. Seven if he empties everything out of it and we have to put it all away when he is through. 

Because I had such high hopes, I also made the mistake of purchasing the felt play food that goes along with the kitchenette.  Riley mistakenly thought it was real food and tried to take a bite out of a carrot and he is now horrified and wants absolutely nothing to do with it. He of course has no issue though with throwing the food on the ground and letting the dogs consume it.

After witnessing Riley spending hours coloring at the kitchen table we thought it only made sense to get him his very own desk where he could create his own masterpieces. He instead colors on the wall behind the desk, feeds the dogs his crayons and stands on the bench attempting to dance a little jig. On a good day (minus the dancing), he averages about four minutes total spent in this space.

Riley has always been fascinated with small spaces and forts made out of blankets, so why not ask Santa to get him his very own tent that he could spend HOURS in? The only flaw with this brilliant plan was that yes, the first three days Riley would spend HOURS in the damn tent, but he also insisted that one of his parental units had to be in there with him as well. Surprisingly, once we stopped going in with him, his interest waned completely. We left it up for a few more days, and it is now sitting in our attic collecting dust and becoming an antique.

So next year's Christmas should be an interesting one for us. I am seriously considering regifting the damn tent and betting money that he doesn't even notice.