I just want to go potty by myself

So my husband has told me that the day after I get my pregnancy shots, I tend to be a bit more of a handful to be around than the rest of the days of the week. That wasn't really what he said, but it was something to the effect that I was less fun the day after the injection. So today, I was trying really hard to prove him wrong seeing as I had an injection yesterday. But as things tend to go, it wasn't an easy thing to do.

First of all, the herd of elephants that live upstairs from us decided to have some kind of party today. The loud bass started at around 11:00 am and continued through at least 6:00 pm. I don't care if Jay Z showed up at your place, I don't want to hear your music. Ever. Also, I don't need to hear your elephant children running up and down the stairs as fast as they can over and over again. Why aren't they ever in school? And why don't they ever go to bed before 11 pm? Anyway, you can see how their behavior is not having the greatest effect on my maintaining a positive mood today.

Then, on top of that, we have a two-year old that decided that he didn't need to take a nap today (could have been because of the music we could hear coming from upstairs...who knows?). Then when he gets overly tired, he becomes clingy. Everything that I do, he wants to be a part of, and that includes when I need to use the bathroom. Kid, Mommy needs to pee, and I just want to do it by myself. So, this happens, and I go to use the bathroom. I get there before him and close and lock the door, and then the fussing begins because he wants in and he can't get the door open. I don't say anything because I need a minute alone at this point. My husband must be able to sense that I need at least this 2 minutes to myself because he reassures Lukin that Mommy will be out in a minute and she is just going potty. Lukin does survive the potty break, and we make it through the rest of the night.

But now I can see what my husband is talking about. Even I am glad that I don't get these shots more than once a week.

Levels of Concern

So I have gone through most of the different levels of concern in the last couple days. For those of you wondering what I have been concerned about, I am talking about my parents that moved to Fargo in January/February. With the looming flood taking the headline of our news in the cities every night, it's hard not to be worried. (Now I know how my mom felt in 1997 when I was in Grand Forks.)

Anyway, I call my parents at least twice a day to get an update. And this morning, after seeing a story saying that one of the levees had broken, I was near panic. But I felt better after calling my dad, who was watching a city conference when I called him and said that no levy had broken. I felt better to know that.

Dad then told me that he spent the whole day yesterday sandbagging about two blocks from their house. There is some kind of drainage ditch there and they created an earthen levee and some sandbags along with that. He said that made him feel better about their house (and area). He also said that they spent about an hour and a half bringing everything upstairs from the basement, just in case, last night. Then there were a few more things that he and mom were going to bring up which would take another hour or so to do. He said that if they did it for nothing it would just have created 5 hours of work, but if they did get water, then they saved themselves thousands of dollars by bringing all of it up. I think they made the right choice.

Tonight, my mom called me to tell me that they had checked on some website and it said that they were probably going to be okay. I don't know what website that was, but it made me feel better. Mom told me that earlier today they were on the brink of evacuating, but then they didn't and now they think they will be fine. I told them that if they needed, they can always, ALWAYS come here. I want to know that they are safe. They said that they have an escape route planned if they need to use it. That's good. Now, I just hope that they won't have to use it.

Winner Winner...

Chicken Dinner.

As those of you who follow University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux Hockey would know, the Sioux did not win their first game at eh WCHA Final Five in St. Paul on Friday night. But seeing as they tend to get on a winning streak later in the year, and the fact that they were to play the 7th place team, when purchasing tickets, we bought for the Saturday night Championship game long in advance. So when they lost on Friday, we had to decide if we wanted to come to the game on Saturday or not.

So when you are trying to decide something like this, you tend to weigh all the factors: We had already bought the tickets and if we didn't go, we would just be out the money. Sonny had to work at 3:30 am both nights and if we didn't go, he would get more than 3 hours of sleep before work those nights. Our team wasn't playing so would we even have fun?

So we talked about it on the drive home from the game on Friday night. We decided that we would go. What the heck. We would cheer for the University of Minnesota - Duluth, and against Denver University (because they were ranked number 2).

The funny thing we discovered on the drive was that I had never been to a hockey game that didn't involve the Sioux before. It was going to be a first.

So when we got there, we wandered around killing time because there was about an hour to the start of the game. We walked by this State Farm booth that had a spinning wheel (like a Wheel of Fortune type thing) that you could spin and win a prize. Sonny was all for this, and so we got in line. The five people in front of us all got a deck of cards. That's what Sonny wanted, and he was very vocal about what prize he wanted. Of course, when he spun it, he got a chapstick. Then I stepped up to spin, thinking I would get the cards, but no luck, I also got chapstick. But the State Farm lady spun it one more rung and it landed on deck of cards, so we did end up with a free deck of cards.

Then when we went to our seats, there were free foam fingers from the Red Baron WCHA Final Five tournament 2009. Sweet. (I think Lukin will get a kick out of those.)

Then later during the first period, this lady shows up and starts handing out free Red Baron pizza coupons to our row because we are in the winning row.

So, we got cards, chapstick, two foam fingers, and two free pizza coupons, I giggled and was like, "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner". Sonny was excited that we were getting random stuff to use as a white elephant gift at Christmas. It was fun.

Oh and in case you were wondering, UMD beat Denver 4-0. It was a good game. And it was way more fun to cheer for the team with the scary good goalie than against them.

Lopsided State/Bleeding Green

Once in a while, I have to explain things for people who live under rocks. So here goes. The NDSU Bison are currently down here playing in the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament (aka: March Madness). At the same time, the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux Hockey team are down here for the WCHA Final Five hockey tournament. After watching the news tonight, I jokingly said to Sonny, "I don't think anyone is left in Grand Forks or Fargo. They are all probably down here." Then that made me giggle as I thought of the state being lopsided because there was no one holding down the eastern side. (Of course, there is always my family that is still in Fargo to celebrate Mom's birthday tomorrow. Way to hold 'er down!!)

Anyway, so I don't actually have an opinion this way or that about the basketball game, it would be cool to see a team from my home state do well, but I am not gonna watch all the games or anything.

However, I will be front and center tomorrow night to watch the Sioux hockey game. I am pretty excited about that! (On Wednesday, a kid asked me why I was wearing green that day and not the day before. I told him that I would be wearing green all week in preparation for the hockey game. He didn't understand. Darn Minnesota kids.) In fact, I think I might even wear my jersey to work tomorrow. This is impressive because the thing doesn't fit properly anymore. Oh well, I am superstitious enough to wear it because I don't want to jinx the team by not wearing what I always wear. (Can fans be superstitious too?)

It's Elmo's Rug!!

If you have children, or have been around children in the last 15 years or so, you are probably familiar with Elmo. Well, if you have had the opportunity to watch Sesame Street recently, you will know that the last 20 minutes or so have been transformed from regular Sesame Street fun to a segment called "Elmo's World". At first, I was annoyed about this, but Lukin seems to like it.

In fact, recently he was watching Sesame Street while I was taking a shower and the Elmo's World segment came on. At the end, Elmo sings about whatever the topic of the day was, and then he sings the theme song. Well, apparently, Lukin knows the song and can sing along. After it was over, he was trying to sing the song and it took me a few minutes to figure out what he was singing. Well, that and he changed the words. I am not sure the logic involved, but for whatever reason it is, he sings, "It's Elmo's Rug!!" But he sings it with such enthusiasm that I almost hate to correct him. It's pretty cute. Of course, I may be a bit biased.

The "E" words: Economy and Employment

Let me start by saying that I like Brian Williams. I never really cared for Tom Brokaw, but I like Brian Williams. So, most nights, if we are not eating at 5:30, I like to watch the nightly national news.

However, with the country in it's current economic state, it's become harder to watch. The other night, I turned to Sonny and asked him if he could remember what the nightly news used to be about before September 2008. We couldn't remember.

So, tonight, there was a story about a Shantytown that has sprung up in Sacramento, and how there are others like it popping up around the country because of job loss and such. Stories like that depress me, and make me not want to watch the news anymore.

Maybe it's because I can relate this to my own personal situation: It's the annual job search extravaganza. Only this year doesn't seem as promising as any of the past years (not that any of them shone really brightly). The main problem I have (already) noticed is that with some of the local districts there is a notice that says something to the effect of: Please complete and submit your application but due to current financial concerns, and lack of knowing what funding will exist, they will not know if there will be any openings, or what those openings will be, for some time.

This scares me.

So when I recently came across a couple of openings in the area (and I use the term 'area' loosely), I seriously need to consider them. It freaks me out though because both jobs would require some driving again. But I have to weigh the options: apply for a job and potentially have to drive, or don't apply and possibly have no openings locally and have another year like this one.

Both options kind of stink. I am hoping for some local district to throw me a bone. But, with the economy the way it is, I am not going to hold my breath.

Mom and Dad's house

So, I completely forgot to write about Mom and Dad's new house since we were there last weekend. I really like it. It's cool. It has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a 3 car garage and it's a bi-level. I don't really know what else to write about it except that they are only like 2.19 miles (or some small number like that) away from my friend Mollie's house. And it's in Fargo, which is awesome for them! Yay Mom and Dad!

A pride that's not my own

So, this past weekend, we went to the final home series for UND hockey. They were playing against Colorado College. They tied on Saturday, which bummed me out because the I knew that even if they won on Sunday, they wouldn't have swept and they wouldn't do my favorite thing (this circle at center ice after the game where all the players tap and raise their sticks...I know it sounds corny, but whatever). But they won on Sunday and maybe because it was the final home game of the regular season, they did their center ice thing. And when they do that, I feel a little overwhelmed.

Now it could be pregnancy. I'm not really sure, but after they left the ice, the seniors came back out and skated around while a little video played showcasing those players. I felt a little bit choked up at that too. And again, I rationalized that it was pregnancy because I don't know any of those kids from Adam. If I ran one over, I wouldn't know who they were. And yet, I was proud of them for playing for the team that I cheer for.

It was a strange and surreal feeling, and I am sure a bit overly analytical, but that's how I roll.