Dinner and a Show

Daddy started snapping the dish towel on the fridge. Apparently it was funny.

(the food he's shoveling into his mouth is pears)

Going Bananas

So for Benjamin's birthday party (more on that later) we went with a very loose monkey theme. And when I say very loose I mean it...we're talking a couple of monkey stuffed animals as decorations. I was trying to find other ways to represent the deep, meaningful, and superfluous theme. My friend, Sarahbeth, God love her, suggested bananas. I thought, wow, what a great idea! They're decorative and delicious! They can serve as thematic representation, hold down tablecloths and napkins, and people can eat them as part of their meal. Genius.

Well, we had a few people fewer than we expected, and I think maybe two people (one being Ben) ate a banana. So here I am with a couple dozen bananas. Despite the fact that my profound knowledge of Economics and the concept of "sunk costs," I can't waste these bananas. I paid for them, there are children starving all over the world, and here they are. So the Millers are feasting on bananas this week. Today's menu:


Breakfast: whole grain organic waffles spread thinly with creamy peanut butter and topped with banana slices

snack: yogurt with bananas

lunch: Peanut butter and banana sandwiches

snack: bananas

dinner: not bananas (let's take a break)

dessert: banana smoothies


There it is folks. If you would like a banana and live in the greater Orange County metro area, please stop by.

My Big Giant One Year Old

Because my little boy has the cutest chipmunk cheeks and most gorgeous blue eyes anyone has ever seen, we get stopped a lot by strangers who want to ooh and aah and give unsolicited advice and comments. The fourth most common remark (after the eyes, the cheeks, and the Gerber baby) is "What a big boy! He's so big for his age!" Maybe it's the weight obsessed culture we grew up in, but I hate it when people say that. Which is stupid because he's a baby and babies are supposed to be round and squishy. And he does have those cheeks (and, depending on his facial expression, a double chin). But he's actually in the 25th percentile, so he's on the smaller side of normal for his age. So to those people I say: Stop calling my baby fat, and stop putting your greasy germy stranger hands all over his face. But thank you for thinking he's cute.

Anyway...back to something less irrational and irrelevant. Last Friday, July 17, my sweet baby boy turned one. We had a great day celebrating him.

I started the day by torturing him with a one-year photo session. This is the part of the day where I'm that mom who thinks her son is a doll that would be fun to play dress-up with. He was actually a pretty good sport about it, and the pictures didn't turn out half bad.


For the rest of the early morning we hung out and played. This included reading time. The boy loves books, and he's also a total ham. Not sure where he got either of those qualities.


Matt took a half-day at work and came home early so we could go to the beach. If you want my opinion, the beach is a lot more fun when there are two adults. Then there are two pack mules instead of one, and you can have conversations that have actual words. But our progeny is a big fan of the beach (as are we), and we had a lot of fun.



After Ben took his afternoon nap, we went to the Orange County Fair. In case you were thinking "I'd love to do something fun for my kid's birthday. Wish we had the money to go to Disneyland. Maybe the fair..." don't. Disneyland is probably cheaper and definitely more fun. But unlike some people I know, I actually enjoy the fair. Outside of the rides that fit in a suitcase, the fried food, and the games that federal law requires be physically impossible with prizes that no one would ever want and could get for $3 at Target, the fair is pretty fun. We discovered the Fun Zone, which, it turns out, is the only thing at the fair that a one year old can do. And the only thing he could eat was fried chicken fingers and fried zucchini. We were going for youngest person to have clogged arteries and type II diabetes. We were going to get him a toy, but like heck I was going to spend $80+ on games to maybe win one, and the souvenir toys were lame and not at all age appropriate. Also, I gave him a bit of my ice cream. He then screamed like someone was killing him for 15 minutes when I wouldn't let him eat the whole thing. So we skipped the toy and went home.



When we got home we gave him his presents. We just got him a few things...a few toys, a DVD, fingerpaints, shoes, and a couple of clothing items. His favorite: the tissue paper.

Happy first birthday, my big giant hefty toddler.

Catching Up

We started this blog as a way to keep our friends and family who are near and far informed of our lives. It's been a while since I've posted about the goings on in the Miller home, on account of our busyness and the fact that I had upwards of 24 episodes of ER on the DVR that I needed to watch. Plus there's the ever present black hole. I took a study break this last week, and now I'm refreshed and ready to tackle the next beast. Okay, maybe not so much refreshed and ready as compelled by the calendar; but still...study I must. Before I plunge back into the abyss, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the lovely times our family has shared over the past few weeks.

Ben and I hit the beach with my bestie Erin one beautiful afternoon.

We've hit the pool a number of times (the perk of apartment living that I fully exploit and dwell on to keep my sanity almost daily)

We go to the park once or twice a week. There are a couple of parks we like nearby, and so we frequent them both for lunch picnics and playtime. Ben has a mortal fear of grass, so mostly we hang out on the blanket or play on the playground equipment. His feelings about swings vary almost daily, so that keeps things spicy and exciting.


I still, like a crazy masochist who can't get enough torture, take Ben to the beach by myself once a week or so. I have said to myself every year for the 11 years that I've lived here that I really should take more advantage of the beach. After all, I pay massive piles of money for crappy apartments just for the privilege of living near the beach. Now that I'm not working for the summer, I swore to myself I would not spend my rent check in vain, come hell or tide water. So to the beach I go, armed with a blanket, umbrella, a 22 pound toddler, and all his crap. I should add, though, that we do have loads of fun (once we're on the sand). The Millers love the beach.


And, despite the sweltering indoor heat, we monkey around at home as well. The "air conditioner" has been turned on a lot more as of late.


For Ben's birthday I got him some finger paints. At first, while confused, he seemed to be marginally interested. Then not so much. But hey--if I've learned anything from my solo beach adventures it's been that repeated attempts at something challenging may (or may not) produce different outcomes. So we will try it again this week.


Then there's the matter of the monkey turning one. But that's a different post...

Health Care Rant

I know this is a sensitive topic for a number of people, and I know that there are also a number of people who couldn't care less. But I care. I care because I get it.

One of President Obama's election platforms was health care reform. Good or bad (and here's the big reveal I know you've been waiting for), this was probably the primary reason I voted for him.

I know people freak out about socialized health care. I know a lot of people think Canada and England should just keep their systems and leave us alone. I disagree. First of all, there's a big difference between the so-called socialized health care that many believe Obama is peddling and his actual plan. It's just one more pillar in his socialist agenda that will bring down capitalism, Christianity, and the United States as we know it. The sky is falling, the sky is falling, and so on. I think a little differently. Not that the bills he's attempting to put through Congress right now are perfect (nothing ever was, is, or will be), but if they are what he says they are, I think the plan actually reinforces capitalism by spurring private plans towards betterment by giving people another option. I think it can also save untold mountains of people from death and/or mountains of debt.

Several years ago, when I graduated college, I worked as a server in a restaurant. While employed there, of course I didn't have medical insurance. This was terrifying to me. My job didn't offer it (most companies don't offer benefits to part-time employees), and it would cost me half my paycheck to purchase my own. So I was uninsured for a while. Fortunately, I was young and healthy and nothing happened to me. I started working at Starbucks, which does offer benefits to its part-time employees (one of the reasons I worked there). Later on I worked for a temp agency, which also offered insurance benefits, although they were quite limited. I stopped temping to sub and work on my credential. A few days after I quit, I lost almost all vision in my eye. I called my insurance company to see if I was still covered. They said I was covered until the end of the month, which was a week from then. So I went to the doctor. It turns out I had a detached retina; I was in surgery the next afternoon.

Two weeks later I got a bill from the hospital for $15,000 and a letter saying that I was not insured. The next day I got a letter from my insurance company saying they retro-canceled my benefits to my last date of employment and would not pay for the surgery. Neither the hospital nor the insurance company would budge. I had a patch on my eye and I was suddenly $15,000 in debt for it.

I was uninsured until Matt and I got married. As a substitute I didn't qualify for insurance benefits, and I got turned down by the insurance companies because my surgery was considered a pre-existing condition. I didn't qualify for Medicare or anything else. Fortunately, I stayed fairly healthy. I did have an ear infection, which cost $100. It could have been much worse.

Perhaps if a program such as the one President Obama is proposing existed at the time I would not be sitting with $15,000 in medical debt. Perhaps I would not have been uninsured for three years, praying I wouldn't get sick or hurt because I couldn't afford even an ear infection.

So call me a socialist, but I hope these bills go through. Because I wouldn't want anyone to have to go through what I went through. And I know there are many out there who have been dealt much heavier blows as a result of a system so broken it's nigh impossible to fix.

This is what President Obama is proposing.

Shannon's Mind Grapes

The random things I've been doing and thinking about (because you care)...

1. Ben turned one. Wow. This deserves its own post...or maybe several. But I just don't have the mental or physical stamina to talk much about it (see #2). I can't believe my baby boy is one! We had such a great time for his birthday. While I'm sad to see the passing of a lot of big and little things, I'm excited for what lies ahead.

2. Yesterday I took part 2 of the Test of Doom. This one was American History. It was crazy hard, but I think I passed. Now I'm going to take a break for a week or two before diving into the last one: California, Economics and Government. Don't be jealous.

3. My mom gave Ben these big leggo-like blocks, MEGA Bloks, for his birthday. Ben eats them while Daddy builds castles, complete with waterways, towers, windows, and bridges. The upside: fun for the whole family. The downside: clean-up just got eight thousand times longer. For mom, anyway. Dad's got to defend his fortress and Ben's got DVDs to reorganize.

4. Apartment living sucks. I know you're tired of me whining about this. But the summer is the worst. I realize those of you who live beyond Orange County laugh at my inability to deal with heat. But what you need to understand is that the builders of this particular complex seem to have forgotten insulation. So if it's 50 degrees outside, it's 20 inside; if it's 85 degrees outside, it's 120 inside. And let's not forget the trillion percent humidity. If I could shower every 20 minutes I would because I hate sweating, and that seems to be the way of it here. We have four fans, and those cool the temp about 5 degrees. We have one of those swamp cooler air conditioner jobs, which work great if you don't mind sitting directly in front of it and you don't need to do or hear anything, and you hate your paycheck and want to donate it to Southern California Edison. Also super fun: The Family. They live in the buildings around us. The little ones ride around on their big wheels through the narrow pathways and the teenagers hang out at the laundry room at 11:30pm and play tag. Now, I'm sympathetic to their plight. Where else are they going to go? They need to go outside and play, sure. But that doesn't make it easier when I'm shoved off the path onto the grass carrying a 22 pounder and eight bags of groceries because my car is 26.2 miles away and I live upstairs and like hell I'm going to make multiple trips because it's freaking far and what am I going to do with the T-Rex while I'm making the sojourn to and fro? Then let's talk about laundry. So I'm hauling the clothing, towels, washcloths, etc. of three people (and let's be honest...the smallest one somehow ends up contributing the most), detergent, and quarters up and down the stairs, down the pathway of death, and into the sweltering laundry room. Meanwhile, what do I do with the T-Rex? Put him in the baby backpack and add 40 pounds to my load? Put him in his exersaucer with Baby Einstein on, lock the door, and hope for the best? Then there's the claustrophobia and the desperate need to evacuate the 900 square foot sweat chamber and go outside. And go where? The back deck? All ten feet of it? The grassy knoll outside? all ten feet of it? The pool? For how long? Take a walk? Should I go on busy traffic street #1, busy traffic street #2, or the freeway? Nothing says relaxing stroll like swerving around drunk people, pre-teens on skateboards, and SUVs (perfect for those rugged 0 elevation beach streets).

I know what you're thinking. Shannon, why don't you buy a house? Well, because when I was 18 I was hoping my college wouldn't kick me out for not having enough money, and so I wasn't able to start saving the trillion dollars necessary for a down payment on a house in Orange County. Okay, why don't you rent a house instead of an apartment? Well, that would work if everyone in Orange County hadn't foreclosed on their rental properties and the few that were left were able to charge whatever they wanted (simple supply and demand economics...see, I'm totally ready for the next test). So why don't you move? Great idea. We'll just quit our teaching and mortgage jobs and head out. We won't have a hard time finding work at all.

5. Kids' shoes. I'm pretty sure there's a conspiracy. Ben has relatively small feet. He's starting to walk (not quite on his own, but it's coming). Baby shoes don't fit anymore, and they're not practical for when we're out and about and we walk holding hands. Toddler shoes are too big. So what are we left with? A whole lot of nothing. And I don't know if you've ever had to shop for baby/toddler boy shoes before, but it's pretty bleak. Walk into any shoe store and you'll find AISLES with LOADS of shelves packed with girl shoes. Then there will be a corner of one shelf that has two different styles of boy shoes in sizes 1, 2, and 6. After, and I so wish I was exaggerating, a couple of months of looking, I found a pair of sandals and a pair of tennis shoes (not at the same store, mind you). Oh, and did I mention that they cost as much as a pair of Jimmy Choos? And that he will grow out of them in ten minutes and I will have to start all over? If you think that there is a chance that you will ever get pregnant, and if you see some cute little boy shoes, you should buy them. Because you just never know if you will ever find some again.

That's enough caustic sarcasm for today. I have to go wake up my 1 year old now so we can build fortresses with blocks.