Oh here, I'll leave you with something that Catty surprised me with this morning - it's the URL of her favorite website, but she gave it to me backwards! Don't ask me how she does it, LOL... Ok, I do know how she does it - I was a spelling bee champ many times over because all I had to do was picture the word in my head and read it straight off the chalkboard in my mind. But Catty's ability to spell forwards AND backwards out of her head (16 characters here!) at 4 yrs old is just crazy.

It's kinda scary to look at your kid and wonder how long before they can outsmart you, the parent... I hear the clock ticking, and it's making me nervous...



07/26 - DISNEYLAND!! It was a whirlwind quicky trip, we flew out there and returned back home in almost exactly 48 hours. It was very exhausting, but fun! Consider it a dress rehearsal for our big trip at the end of this week - we're off to Hawaii for a few weeks! YEEEEEEEEE!!! Gotta get out of this desert! I can't stand being stuck in the house for 3 months of the year!!!



07/13 - Embarrassing mom moment #3674 - I'm getting the kids out of the car in a parking lot and notice an older woman wearing an eye patch heading our way. Remembering that Catty and I had just read a pirate book before bed last night, I say quietly, "Catty, don't ask me if that woman is a pirate." Catty looks over at the woman and responds loudly, quite insulted: "Mommy I know she's not a pirate! She doesn't have a peg leg!!" OMG...



07/12 - Ok, I'm feeling much better today, after all the positive feedback from my last post! So thanks everyone! Thought I'd return the favor by sharing the latest edition of Catty Comics with you! And if you liked those, there's some older editions here and here! Enjoy! :o)

p.s. The mom who wrote the email that launched the blog update below and I have had a nice chat and straightened everything out. No harm was meant, and all is well. Yay! :o)



07/11 - Somebody sent me an email today asking why I don't post more updates on Devin. It was a very brief email, so I can't say for sure what kind of tone was intended, but me being the super-sensitive person I am, got all bent out of shape. I felt like they were insinuating that Catty is the 'Golden Child' for being so bright, and Devin is the one left in the dust because he's not. And again, I don't KNOW if that's what they were implying - that's just what I felt after reading their email. But ok, let's discuss this topic so it's not an issue in the future. (yup, mama bear is still miffed, many hours later) So let's talk about Devin.

Devin has been slow to hit every milestone. Devin has been extremely speech-delayed. On the two mommies' boards I post on for him, he's been one of the very last kids to speak and string words together and talk in complete sentences. He's turning 3 this month and still speaks using the fewest number of words possible. And those words are VERY hard to understand - only Catty and I can translate Devin-speak.

He also suffered badly from SPD (Sensory-Processing Disorder), which had me tearing my hair out until I was able to diagnose him and work with his issues. He wouldn't sit down in a bath, or go near the water in a shower. He wouldn't wear socks, and if I bought him new shoes, I had to sneak them on him while he was sleeping. One piece outfits, like jumpsuits, Halloween costumes, overalls, footie jammies - all sent him into a screaming panic, lying on the floor just shrieking in terror, "STUCK! STUCK! STUCK!" until I took it off him. He could not be confined in any way except (thankfully) a carseat. Stroller belt, hiking carrier, airplane seat belt, anything that could hold him down caused a screaming tailspin until he was set free. There's more, but you get the point (I hope). It was a challenge to deal with. But thankfully, he has started to outgrow it now.

Is he retarded? No. (Ok, I know it's not P.C. to use that term in jokes, but I am being quite serious here, so I hope it's ok in this instance) Devin loves Disney Cars - he could talk about "Cars" all day and all night. He is also content to lie on the ground playing with his cars for an amount of time that does kinda disturb me, but the guys in my chat room say they did that too as kids. Here is where I wish Don was around, because he would know what is normal for a boy, and I don't. *sigh*

Anyway, my bottom line here is that I just want to clarify - Catty gets more text written about her because she does more interesting stuff. She's the one pushing the learning boundaries. It's not real interesting to read, "Oh yay, Devin was the last kid to learn how to sing the ABC song on the message boards I post on!" ...or is it? Ok, maybe cheering for 'Devin the Underdog' could be a fun pastime. I hadn't thought of it that way, LOL...

I guess I've been guilty of hiding my struggles with Devin because I thought they would be boring to read about. But I've never been trying to hide him away because he's not like Catty. Catty is an amazing child, no doubt. She went online and taught HERSELF the alphabet in sign language, and then taught it to me! I don't have to push her - she's just a learning junky like her mommy. It's fun for us!

And Devin, my beautiful little blonde haired, blue-eyed 1/4 Japanese monkey, LOL... trust me, he actually gets MUCH more of my time than Catty does. Because I know he needs it more than she does! I know he's a bit slow, I know he has some issues, and I know he needs help. So I'm doing the best I can with him. I really do believe in my heart what my chatroom friends have been saying all along - "Devin is going to surprise you one day."

I do believe he will. He has shown me in many ways that he knows much more than he lets on. So I've got my fingers crossed for him!



06/30 - Catty's new role - professional party trick! I was at a birthday party with the kiddos yesterday, for Catty's best friend who was turning 5. The mommy of Catty's best friend also happens to run the daycare she goes to, and I found her two older daughters having Catty do "tricks" for the parents of the other little kids who were there. First they had Catty do arithmetic for the parents, and when they were impressed, the girls said, "But wait! She can do it in Spanish too! Catty, what's 2 + 5 + 3 in Spanish?" Catty replied, "Dos y cinco y tres es... diez." And then Catty added, "Tengo cuatro anos!" ("I'm 4 years old!") which made me laugh, but I was glad the other parents didn't know what she was saying. It might have made them feel bad, since they all had kids the same age, y'know? (having a son who is quite speech delayed made me aware that it's no fun to see all the other kids hitting their milestones before yours!) But with the big toothless grin that Catty has, they probably thought she was 5 or 6 yrs old, avoiding any awkwardness, I hope! I turned around and left Catty to have her fun - remember, she's Little Miss Pageant Girl, and I'm Mommy Miss Socially Phobic - she LOVES the attention, and I run from it! But I'm so proud of my little girl! She's gonna be quite the geek like her mom - she's going to summer school right now, and complains to me when the teacher doesn't write on the chalkboard enough, because she wants more reading, writing, and arithmetic - and less arts and crafts. I'm quite sure she's the only 4 year old with THOSE complaints, LOL...



06/11 - Thanks so much for all the 3-year memorial wishes, everyone! It means so much to me that other people still remember Don, and/or care about me and the kiddos enough to think of us right now!!

Catty just had another dentist saga (after getting the wrong tooth filled a few weeks ago ((see 05/01 entry)) and losing her first tooth at only 4 yrs 2 months... Check out this craziness!!

Poor little girl! Hopefully her teeth will come in the way they're supposed to now, fingers crossed!!!



05/31 - Most of the time I think I've adapted pretty well to taking Catty's quick mind and geeky tendencies in stride. But this time she completely threw me, LOL... My loyal assistant dictator gave her an awesome new computer - it's literally the size of the cd drive in a regular computer! So cute!! I opened the box and showed it to Catty, and then I put it back and said I would set it up for her this weekend when I had some free time. Well Catty wasn't having that, LOL - she begged me to set it up right away, and when I said no because I was making dinner... well she took matters into her own hands! She wanted to put her favorite DVD in the new computer ASAP, so I told her she needed to set up a power cable from the computer to a power strip to open the drive. She did that, and also figured out on her own that the new computer would need a keyboard and mouse. Once I realized she was on a mission, I explained that she needed to transfer EVERYTHING from the old computer to the new one so it would work right - Ok! The only hitch came when the monitor cable wouldn't fit. Mommy did a quick inspection and said the new computer needed an updated cable - so go look in the box and find a new cable that will fit! I sat back and watched her work through the possibilities until she solved it. Finally Catty announced with satisfaction that she thought her mission was accomplished! Mommy said Ok then, let's see... boot it up! And BAM! There it was. Perfect bootup on the first try. Dang, I didn't do that well the first time -I- ever set up a computer! So there it is - my 4 yr old daughter just made me look sad, LOL... It's so ironic that I've always held onto one small shred of self confidence when dealing with the outside world, knowing that I have a very good head on my shoulders - it's like a secret weapon for a socially phobic person, y'know? But now I'm losing that little bit of self-confidence to a 4-year old kid, LOL... I might never leave the house again! At least until Catty is old enough to be my buffer to the outside world, hahaha...



05/27 - So when you look at this house, what thoughts spring to mind? Think about how small you'd have to be to walk through one of those doors - can you imagine people in there getting lost on their way to the kitchen and having to call for a search party to rescue them? I'll tell you what I think about when I see this pic. I think about how much it sucked a$$ to shovel that driveway multiple times every winter, and the whole thing had to be done, not just two strips for the tires! Mowing that lawn with a @(#*$^@ push mower every summer sucked equal amounts of a$$. And standing in that river across the street one Xmas Eve, wanting to drown myself after being locked out of the house by my parents, but discovering the stinkin' river only came up to my knees, well that probably sucked the most a$$ of all! Yup, nothing but cheery, warm memories of the house I grew up in. Yay for zillow.com, where you can type in any address and see a satellite view of the house! Ain't technology grand?

But if you ever wondered why I never really fit the pornstar stereotypes, there's good reason for it - I was raised very well. And I do mean that in a positive way - I got a top-notch education, was raised with good manners and class... but at the same time I was so abused at home, that living on the streets as a teen became the far preferable option to any more torment, and then doing porn was preferable to being on the streets, so that's how it played out. Although I have no bad memories of making adult movies aside from the terrible stresses of being painfully socially phobic and in the public eye, I also know I never really fit in with my peers and co-workers. Everyone thought I was strange, too aloof, too smart, too standoffish... I just didn't have anything in common with them. I was happy to go home to my computer lair alone every night and "geek out" with my computers, rather than party, socialize, or do things for publicity. And so I made it through 10 years of porn and came out the other side pretty much the same person I was when I started. Well-raised, well-educated, good manners and still very shy. Weird, huh?

Eh, enough of that tripe! Here is something I know you will love - AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com! The name says it all... there's some really freakin' hilarious pics on that site! ENJOY! :o)



05/13 - Well here's an idea for a reality show that hasn't been done yet - find people who haven't seen each other since he took her cherry 20+ years ago, and compare their stories of how that first time went! Yup, this is pretty crazy, but after posting the story of my first time a couple weeks ago, I actually managed to find the guy on Facebook! And not only was he a very good sport about seeing our story put online for the whole world to see, but get this - he sat down and wrote HIS version of events that night! How cool is that? So here ya go - Here's HIS side of the story! You'll notice that his version is pretty damn close to mine, even after 21 years. And I had no idea I would ever be able to locate him online after writing my version, or that he would share his with everyone - so if that doesn't prove how stinkin' honest I am, I don't know WHAT would! But you guys already knew that! ;o)



05/10 - I hope all you moms had a great day today! I want to thank everyone who took the time to wish me a Happy Mother's Day this past week, because of course, my kids aren't old enough to do much of that yet. So it's really, really sweet that so many of you, who are not my husband or kid (I'm pretty sure, LOL!) thought to send me some love anyway. THANK YOU!!! I didn't do much today, just enjoyed a fun day with the kiddos in the backyard, and we went to the Cracker Barrel for dinner. Yum! And now we're reading a bunch of library books and tucking into bed. Which is enough for me. All is well on this end; I am a very happy and lucky camper. :o)



05/04 - If you're bored and haven't seen this site before - textsfromlastnight.com Highly recommended for relieving late-night boredom online. I dare you to make it through without laughing! Oh, and a mention of me in an upcoming documentary on retired pornstars on Kevin Pollack's show, here.



05/03 - 3am, surfing youtube, and waxing nostalgic for a time when performers had real talent instead of a crapload of special effects and photoshop. If you've never seen this gem before, you're really missing out - Fred Astaire and "Putting on the Ritz" (don't even mention that one-hit wonder P.O.S. version from the 80's or I will have to smack you upside the head, LOL!). If you can't make it through the whole thing, cut to 3:30 to watch true genius in action. (How does he pull that trick at 4:15??) Notice how the simplistic the camera shots are; in the first half it only cuts away maybe two times, and in the second half it never moves at all. Astaire said "either the camera dances or I do!", so that was his trademark. No fancy stuff from anyone else - it's all him. Brilliant! (Not bad for a guy whose initial Hollywood screen test comments read "Can't act, can't sing, balding, can dance a little", eh?)



05/01 - Crapsicles! It's May already? How the heck did that happen so fast! Gah!

Anywho... So I took Catty to the dentist to have a cavity filled. Great pediatric dentist, all the bells and whistles for little kids, TVs playing kiddy movies in the ceiling, tiny toilets and sinks in the bathrooms, teddy bears, video games, toys, just so much fun for lil' monkeys! They filled Catty's cavity in record time, and we paid up and headed out. Just before we get into the car, something made me say, "Catty, come over here into the sunlight and lemme have a look at your teeth for a sec!"

Imagine my surprise when I saw the big fat cavity STILL THERE! The dentist filled the WRONG TOOTH! One with NO HOLE!! WTH?!?

So we had to go back in and the dental assistant said, "Oops, sorry, my bad, I put the wrong tooth number into the computer!" So we waited half an hour and Catty had to go through the whole thing again. And now she has a filling in a tooth that was just fine. GRRRRR!!!

In other news, I am not quite an old stodgy geezer yet - here is a webcam snap I took for my chatroom of me tucking into my third (and final!) Guinness beer of the evening HERE! I only get buzzed enough to turn on the webcam maybe once every six months, so don't hold your breath waiting for the next pic, LOL... CHEERS! :o)



4/25 - Not sure if I ever shared this story with you guys, but it's one that's always interesting/amusing (or maybe not so much) to look back on... I just posted it on my mommies board, so I'll re-post it here. It's the story of how I lost my virginity...

I was 14, and he was the cutest guy in my biology class. One grade older, completely and totally out of my league, but every day I wrote his name in my diary and drew hearts around it.

One day we got to talking, and the next, he asked if he could pick me up the next night at my house. I couldn't say yes fast enough! (looking back, we can see that a date at 2am being picked up by a guy who was 15 and not old enough to drive yet = BAD IDEA, but to a 14 yr old perennial loser girl with hearts swirling around her head, it was a dream come true!)

So he picks me up at 2am, and drives us to a local racquetball club and parks in the parking lot behind the building. 30 seconds later, I'm like, "WTH? That's it? That's all there is?" But wait - he did it again! So 30 seconds later, I'm like, "WTH? That's it? That's all there is?"

And then - another car pulls into the parking lot, and there's flashlights shining into our car and we can hear walkie-talkies. We both scrunched down into the foot areas of the car and did our darnedest to play invisible, but for some reason the cops weren't fooled.

So we got hauled to the police station and they called our parents. His mom came at 3 am to pick him up, but my parents didn't answer the phone, so I got door-to-door delivery at 3:30am by two officers in uniform. You can guess how well that went over with my folks. (and no, I don't blame them one bit, nor did I even at the time!)

Kudos to the policemen - I was telling them that my parents were going to beat the crap out of me on the way to my house, but I'm sure they thought I was just another teen trying to get out of trouble. Get to my house, nobody answers the doorbell, so I had to go inside and break the news to my dad. His reaction was to clock me in the head so hard my head hit the wall and I saw double. I ran outside crying to the policemen, and cowered behind them in fear: "Well that was one hit to the head!" and I guess they must have heard the thump, because they TOTALLY covered my a$$ when my dad came to the door. They told my dad that "there was nothing going on when we found them" and "kids do this all the time, it's no big deal, really". To this day I am grateful for them saving me from the beating of a lifetime.

And I totally learned my lesson. I did not even THINK about going there again until three years later when I was 17, very much in love with a long-term boyfriend, and we used protection, the whole nine yards.

So yeah, that's my story. Cops brought me home after my first time. Excellent way to reinforce abstinence in the future, if you can arrange it to happen for your kid, LOL...

I hope your first time went better than mine, but if it didn't, feel free to share with me! Misery loves company, hehehe! ;o)



4/20 - Catty's favorite game these days is playing school, which makes me feel like a bad mommy, because I don't enjoy playing "school" any more than I enjoyed actually going back in the day ;oP But that's ok - as you can see, "Miss Catty" has made up a classroom so she doesn't need me there, complete with a front row of her patented happy oranges! Here she is putting up some fill-in-the-letter puzzles for her class. She is so very excited to be starting kindergarten in the fall! I'm very glad I found a school that would let her start a year early, as she just turned 4 and reads quite well now, and does addition and subtraction, and all the rest of that stuff they usually do in grade school. She even speaks Spanish in full sentences now - yesterday she looked out the car window and said "Mommy, donde esta la luna...?" (where is the moon...?) It's really neat how she'll just use Spanish words anywhere in a sentence, or spit out a Spanish sentence in between English ones. It's like she's really bilingual! :oD I think I'll have to pin my hopes on Catty for being an academia star... Devin has about as much interest in playing "school" as I do, LOL...



04/14 - Thanks to everyone who sent me a heads-up about my inclusion on Spike.com's Top 10 list of Big-Brained Beauties! I just gotta say that it's really, really nice, after a long day of cleaning up house after the kids, changing Devin's poopy diapers, and picking up dead mice who lost a battle with one of my four cats... it's just really nice to be able to go to my computer and see that there is this alternate universe where I am still believed to be brainy and beautiful! Seriously, it is a much-needed ego-boost to have a little pick-me-up like that at the end of the day, when I'm feeling fat, frumpy, tired, grouchy, and definitely not like I've used any Mensa-qualifying brain cells in WAYYYYY too long... Thanks, you guys! Gotta love the internet!! WOOT!!! :oD



03/29 - Just a very sweet story I had to share with my mommies board about why we have kids. Mine are just the bestest - they can always turn a bad day good for me without even trying! LOVE THEM!!!



03/24 - I'm sure most of you have realized by now that my blog is less and less about "Asia", and more and more about "Asia 2 - The Next Generation". And I guess you're all right with that, or you wouldn't still be coming around, right? ;oP Eh, we're all getting older, and I know many of you are also doing the family thing yourselves now, so we're all in this boat together! But I am really excited about Catty's future. She could single-handedly keep this blog quite interesting for years to come! She really is a mini-me in every way, physically and mentally, and I'm curious to see what will happen with this "Little Asia" when she is raised in a loving and supportive environment instead of being forced and beaten into a life completely contrary to everything she ever wanted. Like where I might have wound up if things had been different, y'know? Will be interesting to see!

Little monkey girl keeps on blowing me away with her ability to take everything I can throw at her and just run with it. And then asks for more! In fact I have to admit it's both intimidating and frustrating that I can never seem to do enough for her hungry little mind. It makes me feel like a bad mom that she's always asking for more stories, more workbooks, more drawing, more of everything - she's just this amazing little sponge, but I'm doing my best here, honest!!

The Gifted Kids message board I belong to had a thread on having your child draw a picture of a man, and then grading the results according to a checklist of items that the child included in the image. So I asked Catty to draw a man, and she drew THIS for me. She just turned 4 a couple weeks ago, and the grading system rated her image at about "8 years old" in development. I said to myself, "What!? It's a good picture for a 4-yr old, but it doesn't look like an 8 year old drew it! Pbbthtttt!!!" So I said, "C'mon, Catty, let's have a drawing lesson!" And we sat down together, and on our very first try, we turned out this set of twins. (she named hers "Mana") NOW she's drawing like an 8 yr old! ;o) But seriously, you can't force anyone to draw anything they're not capable of - you can only show them how to draw something, and if they're able to, they'll do it! And she did! That's how Catty is with everything - I'll show her how, and she just runs with it. And asks for more! She's definitely a full time job, especially for a single mom!

Now here's her latest trick, and you really have to see this - she did this for me two days ago and I was like, "WTH, Catty, that's amazing!!" Check it out! She's been spelling words backwards out loud pretty much ever since she learned to spell out loud in the first place, and it's always amazed me from day one. Hearing a kid who's just 3 and a half spelling a 5 letter word out loud backwards is really freaky! But this time she did it with an EIGHT LETTER WORD! WTH!?! I know ADULTS who couldn't do that trick, and she just turned four! Crazy. So yeah, stay tuned, I think this lil girl is going to make life pretty interesting for me... ;o)



03/21 - WOOT! I FAILed! I have to admit I am the biggest fan of failblog.org, and their site is the last thing I check out every night before bed, because it always makes me go to sleep with a big smile on my face! HILARIOUS - LOVE IT!!! So it totally made my day today when I got an email saying my submission had just been posted on their site! YAY!! This was actually my second submission - my first submission, the children's story FAIL FAILed at FAILing - DOH!! THIS (library tape FAIL) was the submission they posted today. Yes, that is a real library book I found while on my bi-weekly trip to the library with the kiddos! And you know me, Miss Atheist, I totally started laughing right there in the library, and had to put it on our to-go pile, just so I could submit it as a FAIL! (But take heart, my religious friends - I did read the book to Catty, and she enjoyed it very much. I certainly have no problem with the message it conveyed about loving everyone and being kind and helpful!) I'm going to try to post a link to the "Vote!" page my pic is on right now - if you click the "Vote" link at the top of the page, it's on page 3 right now. But they add new submissions every day, so it will keep getting pushed back to higher page numbers as time goes on. You can click on the "thumbs up" sign to vote for my pic to appear on the front page of the site, but if you can't find the pic anymore, that's ok! I was really just happy to be on the site at all! Plus I still have a few more FAILs up my sleeve; I just have to get pics of them! Muahahahaaa...



03/11 - Our latest project has been working on foreign languages here in the Asia household. Reading about how the human brain works has always been a fascination of mine, so I'm well aware that by the time US schools get around to teaching foreign languages, the part of our brain dedicated to learning languages was long ago reassigned to other tasks. America is pretty much a laughingstock to the rest of the world because of our inability to speak anything but English - we sure are lucky that everyone else learns English so they can talk to us, eh? ;o) Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but if you surf message boards around the internet much, you'll find high school students from countries all over the world who are able to post in English as well as any of us - but how many of us can return the favor? DOH!!!

I was lucky enough (although I certainly didn't realize or appreciate this at the time, LOL ;o) to have both of my parents be immigrants, so I was exposed to languages and foreign culture from day one. And you wouldn't believe how much of it stays with you! My mom was German, and when people ask, I'll say "No, I can't speak German", but when my daughter was born, I sang German lullabies to her that hadn't crossed my mind in almost 30 years! And I can still remember tons of words for household objects that I learned from German word games as a kid - it's kind of spooky how the info can just stay hidden and dormant in your brain for 30 years, but one day you'll reach for it, and there it is!

My language of choice has always been Spanish, so that's the language I've chosen to immerse Catty in. Luckily I have Dora the Explorer backing me up, so Spanish seems cool and relevant to my now-4-yr-old daughter, hehehe! Catty's really good with it - today I said to her, "Me gusta perros caliente" (I like hot dogs) and she responded mischievously, "Me gusta gatos caliente!" (I like hot cats!) and then added "MEOW!" for extra emphasis - OMG I couldn't stop laughing! She's such a little smarta$$!

She's even got Devin joining in on the action - he's sitting in the back of the car, shouting "Open! Open!" because he wants me to open the car window, but I'm ignoring him because I'm trying to drive. So then he shouts "ABRE!! ABRE!!", which is Spanish for "open", and that just blew my mind, because I haven't started teaching him any Spanish yet, so he's got to be learning it from Catty!

I think I'm over my head with this girl - a few days ago while we're out hiking, she says to me from the carrier, "Ee ar san!" And I said "What?" "Ee ar san!!" "What is that?" "I'm counting in Chinese!" I about crapped my pants, LOL!! When we got home, I asked my loyal assistant dictator (who is Chinese/Japanese and was visiting to help with Catty's b-day party) "Is she for real???" And he confirmed that yes, she was counting accurately in Chinese. We don't get tv in this house, but Catty has her own computer and knows how to surf her favorite sites online. She must have found a site to teach her Chinese, much the same way as she found a site that taught her to do the letters of the alphabet in sign language!

Y'know, I'm a smart person, seriously. I'm no dummy! So I have to admit it's freaking me out that my daughter is teaching ME things I didn't know already! Holy shnokes!!! I'm gonna have to work on upping my IQ somehow, or I'm gonna be in trouble with this kid by the time she turns 6 or 7, LOL...



03/02 - Ok, I have found out what "A Mother's Love" means. It's when your 2 yr old son cries every time you pass the Disney "Cars" bedroom set in Costco, so you resolve that you are going to get this for your kid, come hell or high water. It turned out to be the biggest, hugest pain in the a** EVER, involving several days of hard work by one single mom, but mission accomplished, dammit! The set comes in three enormously heavy and oversized boxes, each of which required three strong men to lift it into my Jeep. I could only fit one box into the car at a time, so that was three round trips to Costco to bring all the boxes home. Get home, and darnit, I don't have 3 strong men to unload for me, so guess who has to do all the work by herself?

And it was no minor hauling job either - I'd park outside the front of my house, drag the box out of the trunk, and tear it open so I could carry all the pieces inside one by one. Up the walkway, and then up the stairs. Three boxes, dozens of heavy solid wood pieces. Repeat.

Ok, so I finally got everything upstairs, filling his room and the hallway. That was day one, and I was SORE!! Day two, time to assemble everything!

Day three, go shopping for all the accessories needed to make his room complete! Gotta love the gas pump dresser! Up on the wall, we have a special jumpsuit - Dev's daddy bought that for his unborn son before he died! And it fits perfectly with the decor! Is that the coolest or what? Oh and also, please note the piece de resistance, the world's only oversized "Cars" photo frame, perfect for hanging with those convenient handles on either side, and a... pee-guard at the base? Hahaha, it makes me laugh every time I walk into the room!

So yay, it was a HUGE amount of work for one single mom to get that room furnished and decorated all alone, but I did it!! And why? So I could see this look on my son's face when I was done, of course! LOL!!



2/19 - Notice anything weird about this sign that says Asia? No, me neither, and that's what's strange about it! I saw Catty hanging it on the fridge this morning, and it just kinda threw me for a loop that her writing is getting so good I could wear that on a name tag and no one would look twice! No one would look at that and say "Oh, how cute, you let your 3-yr old write your tag for you!" Today someone finally asked the question I was wondering if anyone would ask - "Why does Catty write "Asia" instead of "Mommy""? Well, once again it has to be chalked up to her precociousness. She noticed a while back that other moms would call me Asia, and when she was learning how to spell "Catty" and "Devin" a year ago, she also asked how to spell "Asia" and "Don" at that time. So I taught her. And then to this day she has refused to write "Mommy", saying, "No, I am writing our NAMES! My name is Catty, and your name is Asia!" and well, I can't really argue with her logic, so I have to laugh and let it go. She does call me "Mommy" when speaking, but she insists on writing "Asia". Oh well, *shrugs*, it's cute. No big deal. And if any of you ever needed a final hint that I am ALWAYS ASIA (and not that godforsaken J-name with all the terrible memories associated with it) there it is. Even my daughter knows it, 'kay??



2/16 - On Valentine's Day, Catty handed me a piece of paper and asked me to draw a heart for her because she didn't know how, and she wanted to make a valentine. So I scribbled 5 hearts on the paper and gave it back. Much later, Catty came and took my hand, saying she had a surprise for me. She led me to the kitchen and showed me THIS!!! OMG!! I was blown away, and I still am every time I open the darned fridge! She made a valentine all right - she made TWO, PLUS Catty and Asia heart cutouts, AND paper dolls of our little family, including a teddy bear for Devin!

Y'know, I figured I could safely ignore Valentine's Day until the kids were old enough to learn about it at school, but let this be a lesson to me - never underestimate THE CATTY!! I need to throw away all the guidelines on what to expect from a 3-yr old, because Catty's rewriting the books!

Being a mom doesn't get any better than this. I know that being a widow with a 2 and 3 yr old means you get nuthin' for V-Day; dem's the breaks! So thank you Catty, for proving me wrong. I could not possibly love my little girl more than I do right now - every single time I open the fridge! :oD



02/13 - Have a Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Random update here - I cut my hair! Yes, I chopped it myself right over the bathroom sink, just like I've been doing since I was 14 years old, when I got my first - and last - lousy professional haircut. I've always cut my own hair since then. I am working on growing my hair long again since I hacked 14 inches off last spring and donated it to Locks of Love. But it's at a terribly awkward stage right now, and something HAD to be done! I couldn't stand looking at my stupid hair for one more day! So without further ado, VOILA! I really, really like it - it takes no styling at all to look like this! Just brush it and go! I should have done it ages ago!! (Disclaimer: I do not recommend you try cutting your own hair!! Don't say "Oh that looks cute, how hard can it be?" and then blame me when you wind up with a buzz cut to fix a botched job!!) This was the first time I ever cut layers this short on myself, and I admit it was a challenge to do the back without having two mirrors anywhere in the house to double-check myself. It took me three days of doing tweaks and fixups before I had everything to my satisfaction, but I'm happy now! Yay!

Oh, and for your viewing amusement, here is a short clip of my 3-yr old Catty reading a page of her "Dick and Jane" book. *snicker* >:o) Make sure you turn up your volume so you can hear what she's reading! Totally cracked me up!!



02/05 - Cripeys, what a day!! I got home with Catty and right away I knew something was wrong. I could hear beeping from a backup power supply, so power was off somewhere! Then I smelled it - this horrible stench of wet ashes, coming from the fish tank room. I ran in there, and the tank lights were out, and the carpet was flooded, the walls were dripping, the whole right side of the tank was completely wet. I opened up one of the doors to look under the tank and... *NOTICE* sorry if you missed the original post, but one of my kids has apprently re-edited this post for me, leaving a lot of rzzzrtarzzzr where this story once was, and I am too lazy to re-type it all out again... suffice it to say my mega-fish caused a fight that cracked the tank and resulted in me shelling out $$$$ for a new 7-ft tank ASAP, and one of the fish was sent back to the fish store. Thanks to Laura for pointing this out to me tonight 2/25 LOL!!

Continuing the original post... I brought home a very old classic book from the library for Catty to read. The old "Dick and Jane" series. You know, "See Jane run. Run, Jane, run!" I had Catty read the stories out loud to me this evening while I was putting the dishes away. And this was when I learned that some classics should probably just remain old classics, and not be used for modern day students anymore. Because some things just don't translate the same way 50 years later... HA!!! Yeah, I couldn't help it - I laughed harder and harder every time Catty said "UP!" again. I had to swap Dick and Jane out for a Dr. Seuss book. Lesson learned!



01/22 - Well here's an interesting update - I'm single again. After about 6 months, give or take, I have bid the boyfriend adieu. Now, before you start frolicking and thinking, "Yippee, here's my chance!" allow me to clarify: I am single, content to remain so, and absolutely not interested in changing that status.

Now here's where it gets complicated, and I'm hoping I can get some input from those of you who have been through a life-altering loss like I went through with Don.

The boyfriend did absolutely nothing wrong. I waited and bided my time carefully for 2 1/2 years until finally hand-picking the guy I thought would fit perfectly with me and my monkeys. And he was everything I could have hoped for. He was smart and funny, handsome and athletic, successful and financially secure, and best of all, the kids adored him. What's not to love?? All systems were go, and I was ready to settle down for a happily ever after story.

Problem is, my heart doesn't seem to be working right anymore. My capacity to open up and love is GONE! It's the most baffling thing. My conscious mind is setting scenes for romance, "Ok, let's do Hawaii, let's do sexy lingerie...", but my subconscious mind is battling me every step of the way. And I do mean subconscious - everything I was doing worked perfectly to draw the boyfriend closer to me in every way, but meanwhile I'm constantly fighting this panicky urge to push him away all the time! And the closer he would get to me emotionally, the more desperate my terrified need to get away became!

I hoped that with time I would get over whatever this irrational fear was, and be able to settle down and enjoy a lovely relationship, but my subconscious never stopped fighting me every step of the damn way. And eventually I just gave up. It just wasn't enjoyable for me to have to fight off panic and fear every time we moved a few steps forward in our realtionship. I had to admit I just wasn't ready to do this yet, and I had to let him go. Again I reiterate, he did nothing wrong. He was doing everything right. The problem was all me. And I think I know what it is - my subconscious is desperately trying to protect me from ever having to go through what I went with after I lost Don, ever, ever again. Because it would kill me. And I have tears rolling down my face just from typing those words. It. Would. Kill. Me. Cannot go through that hell, never never never again.

And I know I probably sound like a rambling psycho to anyone who has never gone through the pain of losing a spouse or the closest person in their life before, and I wouldn't expect you to understand. I never could have imagined pain like this until I had to wake up to the nightmare every day myself. I'm just wondering if anyone out there who HAS been through something like this can identify with the first unfortunate relationship I just bumbled my way through post-Don, if this is something normal, and if I will ever get over my fear of letting anyone in ever again? I have to be honest, I'm perfectly OK with staying single as long as I'm raising my kids. They're all I need right now. But I guess once they leave the house I'll probably get lonely - anyone interested in arranging a date with me when I turn 50? LOL...



01/20 - Utah's schools are really bad, so I've been looking far and wide for a good one to send Catty to. Finally I found the perfect school - it's a small private school with max 14 kids per class, and ranked in the Top 5 Schools in Utah. The only hitch - Catty had to pass their academic admissions testing to be accepted for enrollment. Ok, fair enough. So a few days ago I take my little 3 yr old daughter to be tested for admission to Kindergarten in the fall. I had to pace out in the hallway while they tested her reading, arithmetic, drawing, and who knows what else. Finally they call me in and their recommendation is that she be enrolled into Kindergarten right NOW. Starting Tuesday. WHAT?!?! I was SO not prepared to hear THAT!! I said I wasn't really ready to start her right away, and they said, "Well we don't think she'll be emotionally ready to start 1st grade in the fall unless she completes K now." I said, "1st grade??? I brought her in to be tested for Kindergarten in the fall!" They said, "Oh no, she'd be completely bored if you wait that long to start K." Yikes. That gave me a lot to think about for a few days! But eventually I decided I'm going to let her start K in the fall when she's 4, and that will be skipping one grade. I think that's plenty!

But Catty is super-duper smart. She keeps me on my toes. Most 3 yr olds are just mastering reading and writing basic letters and numbers. Catty sits in the back of the car calling out, "If you have a sheep, and you take away his 's-h', he's an EEP!! EEP!! Hahahaha!!! And a cow without his 'c' is an OW! OW!! Hahahaha!!! Hey mommy, what's N-I-V-E-D spell backwards?? DEVIN!!!" She's very good at jigsaw puzzles - one day she freaked me out by turning all the pieces upside down and assembling the puzzle on the blank side, "Because this side is pink, mommy! That's my favorite color!" Yikes. And the new school she will be attending? They were proud to show her that they are learning Spanish. The teacher said "Everyone say 'Adios Catty!'" "Adios, Catty!" Catty looks at them for a second, then cocks her head to one side, holds out the apple she's been carrying, and says, "I have a manzana!" Yeah, 3 years old. They're gonna have their hands full with her, LOL...



01/09/09 - Hey, if you're bored, you can go vote for me on the list of "Wired's Sexiest Geeks 2008" Just click on "top-rated" and scroll about halfway down the list. This is the image you are looking for! Thanks! :o)

Update - Wowzers, since yesterday you guys boosted me up to #1 on the "Hot" list! I'm right there on the front page now, HOLY COW! THANKS!! But you still have to click on "Top-rated" to vote for me - I'm about 1/5 of the way down the list now. Thanks everyone! :oD

Holy crapholio, you guys have bumped me all the way up to #8 overall? I'm speechless! THANKS!!


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