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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Recent Gems From my Children

"Don't you think Little has a Frankenstein head? I mean it's so tall and square, it looks like a Frankenstein head." ~ Big

"She smells like cottage cheese." ~ Big in reference to The Princess

"Dat is the biggest garage I ever seed." ~ Little exclaiming as we pass a "Self Storage" facility.

"I ate a-hunred-dowlars." ~ Little in a pretend game of. . . eat the money? I don't know, he has an obsession with money and with eating inappropriate things. But I do love the way he says"a-hunred-dowlars".

"Isn't it weird that babies take such little breaths? I think she's hyperventilating." ~ Big's observation of The Princess in her car seat.

"That's not tasty for me."~ Little in regard to our dinner one evening.

"Take me home!! I am SICK of this!!"~ Little while we are out V-Day card shopping

"You are making BAD choices!!!"~ Little yelling at Big for not turning on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Perfection

is about 7lbs 9oz and 19.5in long and arrived on October 28th @ 10:50pm


*pic courtesy of Kacy Cierley Photography

Monday, October 26, 2009

I am Still Pregnant

Can you believe that shit?

I was quite sure that Baby Claire would have made her appearance by now. Apparently my cervix was as well as it's been hanging out at over 4 cm dilated for two weeks now.

Yes, I just posted about the condition of my cervix. My mother deems it necessary to let each of her clients know all about it and send out mass emails to the family about my cervix and Jason seems to think the people in his office cannot comprehend a simple "she's close"; they need the cervical play-by-play, so I might as well give her some publicity myself.


I am 38 weeks and 3 days. I'm already past where I delivered Little at and will be where I delivered Big at in just 3 short days. Perhaps she really has been listening that I would like a Halloween baby. Or she's just stubborn. That could be it too.

So for right now, Baby Watch 2009 is suspended pending a review of cervical conditions on Wednesday.

Monday, October 12, 2009

When will I learn

Seriously. I have been a mom for 9 years now. I've had to go through this toddler phase twice already and have made my bed for a third trip through it. When will I learn? On the whole I think I've learned quite a bit about child rearing and the ways of children in general. I read scores of books on child behavior and discipline. I've had even more experience with 3 year old's in particular- other than my own children- as I was a preschool teacher for several years. I should know this.

Perhaps it's because it is my own child. I fancy my own offspring as above this rule; incapable of being anything but innocent, sweet, angelic beings. Big was an exceptionally well behaved toddler, so in some ways I suppose it's like I'm going through the true version of "toddler terrorism" for the first time. Maybe because of this I choose to turn a blind eye to this particular rule thinking this could be the area in which Little's goodness shines through.

I'm wrong. Every time I am wrong, but it doesn't stop me from hoping. So someone PLEASE tell me the next time I think that my quiet 3 year old is playing nicely that he's not. Remind me that the rule is and has always been "quiet toddlers are up to no good". No exceptions. You would think that after Strawgate of 07 or the Marker Debacle of 08 I would know. But apparently I have amnesia- exacerbated no doubt by pregnancy- and do not think of these shining, case-in-point examples.

In just the past month, here are a few examples of Little "playing quietly by himself":

An entire box of bandaids dumped, opened and stuck to the (dirty) kitchen floor.



Half a HUGE bag of dog food dumped by the cupful on the living room floor (right after I vacuumed BTW)


And this mornings gem. When I said if you were still hungry, I would get you something other than the sour cream and onion Pringles you pulled out of the lazy susan, I did NOT mean you could eat the bag of brown sugar also residing in said lazy susan. As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure I mentioned cottage cheese or some grapes specifically as the only things you were getting to eat this morning for second breakfast. But definitely not the brown sugar.

(Excuse the pic quality on these- taken with the cell as it was what was within arm's reach before I threw him in the shower.)




Yes, he looks high in this picture- 1/4 cup of sugar straight up in a 30lb toddler might as well be speed. We're going to have an AWESOME day.

There is also no photographic evidence of the entire bottle of gummy vitamins dumped (and half eaten) on the bathroom floor (YAY Poison Control!!), or the 1/4 gallon of milk dumped on the floor because my pregnant ass wasn't waddling fast enough to the kitchen to get him some milk, or the bag of fruit loops dumped (again) on the bathroom floor while I was in the shower, or the numerous baskets of folded laundry that have been emptied piece by piece onto the dog hair covered floor because he needs a boat to play in and the other 5 EMPTY baskets are unacceptable.

But you can be sure that they have all happened just since we moved into our new place less than 3 months ago at the hands of my adorable toddler. If that's not birth control enough, I don't know what is.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

This is why we are a bug free home

Because when I make exceptions, bad things happen.

Our neighbor has a small vegetable garden outside her house with some tomato, cucumber, green bean and carrot plants in it. The other day she comes over and tells the boys to tell me to get a jar because she found a really cool caterpillar and she thought it might be getting ready to spin a cocoon and that would be fun for them to watch. ??? So I head over there with the boys since in theory, I have no problem with caterpillars. They make butterflies and are generally harmless, so they are a creepy crawly that I can generally stand.

I get over there and she tells me he's covered in these little white hairlike things, so she thought he might be starting to spin his cocoon. I'm not well versed in the process of cocoon spinning, so sure, that could be it. We put him in a tall tupperware thing (with a corner lifted up so he could breathe) because I am lame and don't have a jar. We come home and I spend an hour online trying to figure out WTF this caterpillar is so I can show the boys what it will turn into. I can't find shit, so I give up.

We have been watching him for two days and I started to suspect that all is not well with this bug. :-/ He looks like he is quite literally losing his shit out one end and he's not moving much. I talked to Jason tonight and told him I think I'm going to tell the boys that he died and I buried him because I don't think it's going to make it to butterfly/moth stage. He hops on Google and in less than 2 fracking minutes he tells me that he knows what it is and that we have to throw it out.

Why you ask? Because the "little white hairlike things" on it are NOT the beginnings of it's own cocoon. They are tons of little cocoons of the predatory WASP that eats the Tomato Horn Worm (which is what this bastard is). The larvae are feeding off the worm while it is alive and will hatch in about 10 days time. It's already been two days just in my kitchen, it could have been days 8&9. Can you freaking imagine if I woke up one morning to a kitchen full of effing WASPS that hatched out of my children's "pet" caterpillar!!!!!!!!!!!! ::)

Here are the pics of the poor soul who was promptly destroyed far away from the house. In theory, the wasps are good because those caterpillars are really destructive to tomato or tobacco plants, but they have no business in my kitchen.








Monday, August 31, 2009

Revelations

The kid can identify the eating habits, appearance, migration patterns and mating rituals of over 100 different species of dinosaurs, but after 8 years on this earth, this came as a shock to him.

Big: "MOM!!!! There are maggots in the outside garbage can again!"

Me: "Sorry buddy, I just washed the cans out, but I guess a fly got in there when I put the garbage in. There's nothing I can do about it until after garbage day."

Big: "Yeah, well, I don't think you should put the garbage back in those cans anyway."

Me: "Why not?"

Big: "Because they make it smell."

Me: "You mean it makes them smell. Well, it's garbage, it smells."

Big: "No, it wouldn't smell if you wouldn't put it in those smelly cans!"

Me: Qua? WTF is this kid talking about? "What do you mean? The garbage is what stinks the cans up, not the other way around."

Big: "What do YOU mean? *insert 3 second pause* Do you mean that if you went to the store and bought new garbage cans, they wouldn't stink when we bought them?"

Me: "Uhhh, yeah, garbage cans don't come 'pre-stunk'."

Big: "Really?! I thought all garbage cans were made smelly. We should go buy some new ones then."

Me: "Why? Our garbage would just stink up the new ones too."

Big: "Oh yeah. I hate garbage."

Friday, August 21, 2009

Dreams

I know right, 3 posts in one day- now you won't hear from me for months.

When I was 14, I got my first job working on the backside of the horse racing track. I was so excited to be doing ANYTHING involved with horses, I (usually) overcame my deep hatred for early rising and not only rose before the sun, but did so willingly to go and shovel shit. The trainer I worked for a was a good woman who loved each and every one of the horses in her care. She taught me a lot about horses and for that I will always be grateful to her.

For the summer season, we were at a track where the stalls in the barns faced each other over a wide walkway. Directly across from us was a trainer/jockey that we'll call "Mike". Mike was not a nice man and epitomized generally every negative stereotype that surrounds those who handle race Thoroughbreds. The two camps never fraternized much as the two trainers could not have been more different.

One day, Mike came back in swearing and kicking and jerking on the horse he had just worked. The horse was sweating and trembling so bad, the lead line looked like it was made of jello. Mike continued to swear and slam things around while he walked the horse around to cool him down until he could put him in his stall. Anytime the horse got too close to him, he recieved a sharp jab in the nose followed by a string of threats about being sent to the butchers.

Eventually the horse was so wound up that he started rearing a little and knocked a few muck buckets over which only increased his terror. He slipped out of Mike's grasp and bolted for the one small patch of grass he could find.


I didn't bother to see what punishment the horse had received when Mike caught up to him, but about 10 minutes later, he was jerked into the barn and thrown (as much as one can throw a 1,000 lb animal) into his stall. Mike immediately got in his truck and left. Our work was almost done for the day, but since I was only 14, I had to wait for someone to come and get me. Before my boss left, I asked her what was going on with the horse who had been so traumatized this afternoon.

She told me that he was a "frustrating" horse for Mike because despite his fairly impressive pedigree, he was stubborn and not much of a racer. For someone like him who was only in this sport for the money, he seemed to take this as a personal slight from the horse and has always treated him like less than a living being. He called the horse "Heart Attack" because his racing name was something similar, but Heart Attack was always jumpy and fearful of everyone and everything he came in contact with.

After everyone left I took some peppermints from our jar and peeked into Heart Attack's stall. He looked dejected and barely even bothered to notice that someone was outside his door. Soon enough his curiosity and the smell of the peppermints that I was now eating since he had little interest in them lured him over to the door. I talked softly to him and gave him the last of the mints. I told him he was a good boy and began rubbing on his face and neck. It is *SO* cheesy, but a friendship was born that day that I have never forgotten.

Heart Attack became one of the best reconciliations for my inability to get myself to and from work as I would spend time with him while I waited for my ride. Some days I would see if I could get someone to give me a ride over to the track in the afternoons or on my day off just so I could see him.

He would answer promptly at the stall door when I would peek around the barn door and call his name very softly. Sometimes I'd sit on the ground outside his stall and he'd "groom" my hair while I read. I liked to think that our few moments of quiet and friendship made his days just a little more bearable on the track. Obviously, our friendship did nothin
g to improve his talent, so he went on being hated and bullied by his trainer.

After I got pregnant with Big, I never worked on the track again and lost all contact with the people I had befriended in my youth. Before I left my job, I had my boss promise me that if she ever got wind that Heart Attack was actually going to be sent to the butcher's that she would do everything in her power to stop it. Like I said, she was a good person and agreed to make a teenage girl feel better. I'm sure, however, if she had ever known that his life was in danger that she would have remembered her promise and tried to honor it.

But life on the track is hectic and crazy, people go from track to track and buy and sell horses not only through private sales, but through claiming races that it is very hard to keep up with someone unless you are in direct contact with them.

Still, I never forgot Heart Attack. I always wondered what had happened to him and on occasion would try to search for him online to see if I could find any race reports or anything for him. Unfortunately, while I knew his "barn name", I didn't actually know his registered name- I had an idea of what it was, but could never find anything on him by guessing at his full name.

Wednesday I woke up from my nap with Little thinking about searching the Jockey Club registry for what I thought was his name. I have ABSOLUTELY no idea why on earth I would have woken up thinking about that after all this time, but I did. The registry search would come back with results for all horses with names similar to that, so maybe I could find him that way. I did some sleuthing and came up with nothing, so I tried searching under the trainer's name knowing as always that it was going to be futile. About 11 pages into a Google search, I found his real name under a race result report for the trainer.

I couldn't believe I had finally found his name! Now that I had that, I could really look to see if he had been doing anything lately. I put it in a search and the second result was from an organization that helps owners find new homes for their old racehorses and he was there.

Since I'm a big pregnant ball of hormones, I started sobbing. I really thought that he had been sent to slaughter years ago and never dreamed I would actually find him. I called Jason immediately and told him that I'd found Heart Attack. Because he can be a good husband when he wants to be, he must have been listening at least one of the times that I spoke about Heart Attack and knew exactly who I was talking about.

He said that he would call the woman at the "rescue" and see what information he could get on him (since I was blubbering like a fool, I was in no shape to be talking to anyone). He called me back to tell me that the owners were no longer in contact with the rescue, but the woman was pretty sure he was still available and that she would pass along their information.


We called them on Thursday only to find out he had been given away about 3 weeks ago. The owner seemed genuinely upset that we had missed out. She offered to call the current owners and ask if they would be willing to sell him for what they paid for him. She wasn't sure what would happen, but said she would try to get back with us one way or the other.

Jason has been out of town working all week. I picked him up from the airport today and was irritated with him as I was trying to call him to let him know I was there and he wasn't answering. Finally he came to the car and was on the phone which would explain the unanswered calls.

As he got in, he got off the phone and told me he brought me home an awesome present from New Mexico to make up for his rather shitty gifts he had brought me from he recent travels. (For example, he spent a week in Hawaii and brought me back a bag of sea salt to cook with- I am a terrible cook- and a glitter babydoll T-shirt that said "Hawaii" on it in a medium. I was 5 months pregnant.)

I kind of rolled my eyes wondering what desert rock or Mexican spice packet he had brought me back. He smiled and told me that he just bought Heart Attack and he would be arriving on our farm next weekend.

It is a dream that I *never* expected to come true. It's so weird that I can remember daydreaming when I was 14 about having a nice farm and bringing Heart Attack to retire with me. He is 15 years old now and ready for a nice quiet life which is exactly what I can provide him with.



Luck of the Irish

So, now that I've updated everyone on our amazing new place, I'm sure there are those who noticed that it is missing something. Something of the 4 legged variety that keeps the mowing responsibilities to a minimum if you know what I mean.

We were not necessarily *looking* for a horse. It just sort of found us. I have been watching the Farm and Garden section on Craigslist just to see what is being offered for sale on there, average prices for things we may need one day- you know. So an ad that offered up a gentle, people loving Tennessee Walker for adoption caught my eye one day.

I showed the ad to Jason who fell in love immediately. He's always wanted a big, pretty paint horse and this big baby was exactly what he was looking for. To top it off, the horse's name was Patrick because he was born on St. Patrick's day and given Jason's affinity for all things Celtic/Irish, it seemed like fate to him. We drove about 4 and a half hours to meet Patrick and his owners. They had been using him to babysit some of the babies on the farm due to his extremely gentle and carefree nature.

Everyone in the family was smitten with him and we decided to bring Patrick into our home. His owners couldn't have been happier- Patrick was very special to them, but due to an impending move, they needed to reduce their herd size. They wanted to make sure that he went to a home that would love him and not treat him like a ticket to the winner's circle in the show ring.
Since he is still watching over one of their little ones, he will not be arriving on our farm until mid October when his little friend gets a new buddy more her own size. The boys are always talking about Patrick and even helped me dust the cobwebs out of a few stalls in the barn today! Here is a picture of Patrick, our good luck pony =)


To catch up briefly

since my last post.

#1- I'm 29 weeks pregnant today. Woot. Only 11 more weeks to go- that's 77 days in case anyone but me is counting. At 17 weeks- right before I left for vacation, we decided to splurge and get a 3/4-D ultrasound to tell us whether we were having a boy or a girl. We rounded the grandma's and aunt up and made it a surprise- fun times. The baby was pretty squirmy, but the tech felt very positive that our final baby was also going to be a boy. I think the girl thought we were crazy when the grandma's both yelled "NO!", but everyone was soon happy enough about Baby Bennett and life went on.
When we went in for our 20 anatomy scan, we went by ourselves since we were just making sure all fingers and toes were accounted for (and they are). Jason and I were talking back and forth about HIM and saying that HE was really a wiggler when the tech asked us if we knew what we were having. We told her we had the 17 week scan and were told boy. I also tossed in that she could feel free to confirm or deny that however she saw fit. Her response: "Well, I'm asking because I'm not seeing anything that indicates that you are having a boy. Everything I am seeing says girl and I've been doing this for 20 years."


Shut. Your. Mouth.

Jason and I are absolutely dumbfounded. I start crying of course, he leans over and asks if she is serious. She insists that she wouldn't even have said anything if she was not 99% sure and offered to have another tech come in and look for us. The other tech assured us that we were indeed having a baby girl. I'm still sobbing BTW. Jas had to take over all communications for me while I sat there and lost my shit.

I had an appointment with my midwife right afterwards and after scaring my mother half to death when she brought the boys to me (what was she supposed to think when I came out of the room in hysterics), I started sending the word out via text. Jason and I were in such a daze when the midwife came in that she asked us what was going on, when we told her we were having, like, the BEST day ever and explained, she was just as excited for us as our friends and family.

Still, it took me every bit of the next month and two more ultrasounds to REALLY believe it. As a matter of fact, last week was the first time I dared to do any shopping for her for fear that she may sprout a penis simply to spite me. I go in for another (and hopefully final) u/s in a few days and will of course, ask them to check again- one can never be too sure, right?!

#2- Around the same time that all this was going down, Little took it upon himself to start potty training. Actually I had about a week that I knew I could devote to really taking him in on time and washing 1,000's of pairs of underwear, so we decided that Friday was the last day for diapers.
To my amazement, we did not have a single accident- he peed in the potty every time. Number 2 was harder and we had a few episodes on the floor (but not in his pants) until he finally figured out that we REALLY weren't going to put a diaper on him and that nothing was going to come out of the toilet and snatch him ass off while he did his business. Since Little is quite possibly one of the most stubborn children I have ever met, I really expected more resistance from him. I am so proud of my big boy!


#3- I'm going to have to put the kabosh on the Plague O Fruit Flies story- it was much more "funny" when I was doing daily battle with them and losing only to realize that a bag of bananas has slipped and fallen down behind our microwave (which was positioned diagonally across a corner) and had become a swapy fruit fly breeding ground. Barf.
Thankfully, our new place has a perfect microwave spot and bananas are now required to be placed on the bakers rack so they can be in full view at all times. Which brings me to my next point- our new place. It happened. Nothing jinxed it and we got moved in with only the normal amount of drama, fighting, exhaustion and confusion that comes with moving. Here is a link to some pictures of our amazing new property. Every morning I wake up and can't believe I *actually* live here. And that it costs a little more than HALF of what I was paying for our shittastic house in the snooty suburbs.


Pics

Friday, July 3, 2009

It May Be a While

I know, like it hasn't already. We are getting ready to move and things are just hectic lately. Our new home is something plucked straight out of an L.M. Montgomery tale and I'm so afraid something will jinx it that I don't even want to write about it. To keep it simple, I'll tell you that it has a pasture and a barn. A nice barn with stalls.

July is turning out to be every bit as packed as May is and June wasn't much better. Summer needs to be much longer.

Also, I'm still working on posts about our amazing gender changing baby, Little's abrupt potty training success, and a cautionary tale about a lost/forgotten bag of bananas and a plague of fruit flies. So check back in.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Little Boys Play This Game Too, Right?

Little (shoving his hands into my bangs and pulling): "Mommy, I wix your haiw."

Mommy: "Ok"

My hair is already a frightening sight since I just let it air dry after getting out of the most chlorinated pool in Christendom, which makes me shudder silently to myself as I think about the man-hours it is going to take to fix this "fix".

Little : "Oh no no no no no no. I wix it."

He notices the grimace on my face as he knots and yanks and teases my hair and assures me:
"It be over soon Mommy."

He stops and waits for further inspiration to come to him. Or he forgets what he's doing and stares off into space while I discreetly try to smooth some of the tangles out of my hair. It looks like Edward Scissorhands hit the pipe and went to town on my head. I don't have to see it, I can feel it.

Little (being drawn from his stupor by my non-stealthy movements): "No no no no no no, I wix it Mommy. Hewe some yotion."

Hair products = lotion in Little Land. He holds his finger up like he's got an invisible lotion pump in his hand and puts it in my haiw. Hair.

"I wix it I wix it."

Severe mussing continues punctuated by him looking at my face and telling me it will be over soon. There is also about a gallon's worth of imaginary lotion pumped into my unruly mane. But it's ok, because every so often those little chubby hand will slide down my face and hold onto my cheeks while he looks at me and smiles. Once you have parented a toddler (or terrorist as a friend of mine has renamed the "toddler" stage), you know that moments like that can sometimes be few and far between and you'd go through anything- even the manual removal of each hair on your head- to get another one.

By now I'm nearly bald in the front, but as Little steps back to admire his handiwork, he realizes that somewhere in the rat's nest he's created, there is A hair out of place. He frowns and tells me he'll wix it and carefully reaches up to readjust ONE hair on the top of the pile.

Little: "Ahh, dat's beb-ber Mommy. All Done!!"

At this point, I am required to look at his masterpiece in the mirror. I want to tell him that I look (and feel) like Amy Winehouse's stunt double, but it's all I can do to smile and tell him it's "BEAUTIFUL!!". Then he runs away and leaves me to sort out the mess.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Don't Worry

It wasn't the stress of being bitten yesterday that made Little fall asleep so early.

He's got a stomach bug and has been puking all morning. It's just as hard as you would think to take care of someone who is puking while you are puking. The joys of motherhood never cease to amaze me.

Monday, May 4, 2009

U Bet It Is

I have been bragging about my week free from vomiting and TWO whole days free of nausea AND vomiting, so this baby has decided to kick me right in the ass and let me spend another day hugging my toilet bowl.

I really hate puking in front of the kids. It scares them and worries them and well, there are some things that are just easier done without a two year old putting you in a half nelson and screaming that he wants milk RIGHT NOW! Thankfully, Little fell asleep on the way home from school today. (He's had no nap and was vampire bait at school today and apparently the stress was just too much for him) It was just Big and I this evening.

I am getting pretty good at controlling all coughs, laughs and sudden shifts of weight that may upset the delicate balance of my stomach contents, but I was unprepared for the violent sneeze that sent me hurdling toward the bathroom. Big heard me and asked if I was ok. I managed to choke out that I was fine.

My stomach seemed to think that the only way to stop this was for me to puke out everything down to my small intestines so I was in there for a while. Big came in to check on me despite my feeble assurance that I was fine. He rubbed my back and asked me if I was ok again. I nodded in between heaves. When I finally caught a break, Big was still rubbing my back and looked at me and said:

"Being pregnant sure is hard work isn't it mom?"

Why yes, yes it is and the sooner you realize this and you start thanking your lucky stars that you got the easy end of life because you were born with a penis and not a uterus, the further you are going to get in a successful relationship with a member of the opposite sex- not that we need to be thinking about that for the next 20 years or anything.

(Small aside here, why is it not "an uterus" or "an unicorn" but it is "an umbrella" and "an usher"?)

Monday, April 27, 2009

The Case of the Missing Mint

I am lazy and hate to cook and that goes double for my husband, so we went to the local Nathan's/Bruster's for dinner on a lovely summer-like evening this weekend. In case you don't know, Nathan's serves "Nathan's hot dogs" which are so delicious and juicy that they are apparently approved by God. They are God approved animal by-products. Bruesters is an ice cream parlor which may also be human tested, God approved, but I'm not entirely sure. It's certainly human approved- even if it is entirely sinful.

A hot dog and ice cream picnic-esque meal on a summer night- how Americana. We even called in the grandparents who came to to join us for ice cream. (someone call Norman Rockwell)


I have never been to Brusters and being pregnant an naturally picky, I couldn't decide what I wanted when it came time to order the ice cream. It's a walk up window and we were the only patrons, so I was taking my sweet time. Big ordered first- Mint Chocolate Chip. That's what he gets every time he comes here. DH ordered for himself and for Little next. MIL decides that she would like 2 scoops of Mint Chocolate Chip in a waffle cone. FIL orders. I still don't know what the hell I want.

I'm going to throw in here that Brusters must be run by an ex-football player or retired female gym teacher as EVERY ONE of their employee's is fresh off the cheerleading squad of the local highschool. I mean it's ice cream and hotdogs- should be cake- even for them.

Suddenly, there is a problem. Cheerleader #1 comes back to the window and says

"We're out of Mint Chocoalte Chip- well, we only have enough for one scoop."

So MIL starts perusing the board to find an acceptable substitute for her one scoop of minty goodness.

MIL: "Ok, I'll have a scoop of Vanilla and the scoop of Mint"

Cheerleader#1: "We're out of Mint." Huh?

At this point Cheerleader #2 comes by with Big's ice cream. It's a scoop of regular Chocolate Chip. I told Cheerleader #2 that this was supposed to be Mint as well.

Awkward silence ensues. I ask is there or is there not a scoop of Mint Chocolate Chip- if there is, Big would like it and MIL says she will get something else.

Cheerleader #1: "We're out of Mint Chocolate Chip." (Maybe she's Robot #1)

Cheerleader #2 steps in to save the day: "You can have this (sliding the Chocolate Chip ice cream toward Big and MIL who are standing together in a united mint front). It's just like the Mint Chocolate Chip, but without the mint."

***

I don't have any words. I can't even look at FIL because if I do, I am going to lose it in a fit of laughter right in this bewildered girl's face. So everyone (including me) gets regular Chocolate Chip as I was afraid any more confusion just might make one of their heads explode.

Thankfully, it was quite tasty- even without the mint.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

It better be a girl

Recently there was a discussion in one of my online mom's groups about chin/facial hairs. At first, I avoided the topic as body hair gives me the heebie jeebies. From the neck down is pretty much a free-for-all for my razor and has been, for the most part, hair-free for about the past 10 years. Life is good.

It was a normal Tuesday about 3 weeks ago when I climbed into my car to leave for work and flipped down the visor mirror to do my makeup (whatever, I was running late). I began with my foundation as I sat in the driveway- there is a routine (I'm late a lot); driveway-foundation, first stop light-powder, second light- blush and lip color, work parking lot- mascara, which equals me arriving at work looking like a million bucks. Or at least not like I just got out of my pajamas 10 minutes before I rolled into work (which I did).

So anyway. Normal Tuesday. Foundation. Right. As I casually glanced in the mirror to make sure I didn't look like the illegitimate child of Two-Face and the Joker, something dark and sinister caught my eye.

I'll cut to the chase. It was the beginnings of my own hormone induced pregnancy mustache. I almost passed out and I won't lie- I got a little teary. I thought "this is it. The beginning of the end." and then I vowed to never look at myself again. Except that didn't work because now I looked like Wolverine came over for a threesome with Two Face and the Joker and I work with children and would probably be fired for scaring them.

BTW- someone out there educate me. I sat here for 10 minutes looking for a hairy, moustached villain from Batman and came up with nil. I had to pull out Wolverine which made me think of Hugh Jackman and the word "threesome" in the same sentence. Which made this post take much longer than it should have.

So it has been three weeks and while I have not been able to not look at my mug in the mirror, I have specifically tried to make it as quick as possible and am sure not to let my eyes wander to places that would upset me. So I have avoided noticing if I have advanced from Justin Timberlake faux-stache to a Burt Reynolds special. Until today.

As if my body sensed the coming nervous breakdown, all lip hair has returned to a non-seizure inducing peach fuzz color and cinsitency<----holy shit that is actually how I spelled that because I am typing one handed and my brain is melting from watching Sid the Science Kid----consistency.

On that happy note (the hair update, not the brain melting part), I'm going to go take a nap.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

I'm Starving!!!!!

Seriously husband. You leave at 7:30 to go get a nice steak and potatoes (the word potatoes is the bain of my existance- I have spelled it every way imaginable, but it still looks wrong as hell) for your pregnant wife for dinner. Nice thought until you decided to spend an hour and a half looking at mother forking FISH for YOU when you know that even when not pregnant, I can't STAND the smell of fish. Plus you still have to MAKE dinner. You really can only speed up cooking a baked potato so much. I'm going to eat you if you aren't careful.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

I remember now

I wanted to talk about me.

I wanted to talk about me and my status as "The Charlie Brown of Electronics". These days it appears my motto concerning anything with a cord or batteries needs to be "I killed it. Everything I touch gets ruined!!!". Let's do a quick rundown of the most recently departed. (We'll start with this year, I don't have that much time to go any further back)

My Guitar Hero Drum set. We have two guitars, a microphone and a drum set. I use the drums (and if I've had enough to drink, the microphone, but that's neither here nor there). Because my husband and I are the hugest nerds ever, after our vacation at Disney, we were all excited to get home and play with our new toy from Christmas- Guitar Hero. That's fine and dandy except that the drums are broken. They worked perfectly before we left. They were left unattended and untouched for 2 weeks and have mysteriously lost their will to play. Casualty #1.

My Passport. Not my incredibly unflattering portrait that says yes, this ugly mug belongs here in the USA, but the portable backup device that I was using to back up all of my photos. You know the 30,000 photos that I have stored on my overstressed computer. It is working fine one weekend, then nothing. The computer can't see it, it's clicking like its got someone playing the castanets in there and nothing is happening. $125 down the drain. Casualty #2.

The Wii. See, it wouldn't matter if the drum set worked or not, forces greater than myself have conspired against my video gaming plans. It has a light that says its on. But it's not. It's a lying bastard. Honestly, the console is used about every other day for about an hour. I don't think this is particularly taxing considering the horror stories I have heard about "gamers" that rival old ladies in front of slot machines. It will usually regain consciousness if we turn it off for about 30 minutes and then try again, but after 30 minutes, I'm usually stuffing my face with something and I've forgotten all about Wii Fit. Casualty #3.

The TV. This one has been coming. Our TV started spluttering and hissing at us a few months ago. It took it a while to come on each time and as long as we were patient, we were rewarded with 52 inches of entertainment. Soon though, turning off and then back on proved to be too much for our 4 year old tv, so we were not allowed to turn it off. We would simply change the input channel on it to make it *look* like it was off, but it never had to be stressed out by actually turning off and then back on. Then my mom picked Big up from school. Being the electricity nazi that she is, she told him to turn it off and he did. Even though he KNOWS he's not supposed to. So now no amount of bartering or pleading can make our TV come out of hibernation. Casualty #4.

And finally, the straw that has broken the camels back. My laptop. Yes, the new one that I just got for Christmas. The big shiny silver MacBook Pro. I was uploading some pictures to have printed for a client and video conferencing with my husband (what, I told you we were nerds!) and it froze. I am not familiar with the "Control+Alt+Delete" of Mac's, so I just turned it off. And it never turned back on. Dh insists that something has happened to it, but I swear I've handled it with kid gloves. Kit gloves? WTF ever, I've been really careful with it. He's saying things like "bad drives" and "unrecoverable images". I'm responding with mature things like "that's unacceptable" and "I swear I didn't do ANYTHING!!". It's out of commission for at LEAST 2 weeks while it tries to recover my files (including the wedding I just shot) and then waiting for the new drive. Casualty #5.

These are not counting the "smaller appliances" which like to randomly stop working once I've dealt with them like I have infected them with a plague or something (the phones, the Apple TV, my iPod and my freaking CHI straightener).

I'm considering my new status as "The Charlie Brown of Electronics" and thinking how fortuitous it is that I am married to my husband. He has some mystical, Jedi-like powers when it comes to things with cords and batteries that is all at once incredibly helpful- and infuriating. He is my Linus.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

I Had Something to Say

I'm quite sure of it. I came here for a reason and that reason was to write about something

. . .

What the hell was it?!?!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

So Simple

Big and I were on our way home from dinner tonight when a conversation about government started. He was asking about mayors and governors and wondering why Sarah Palin didn't wear an Eskimo suit if she was really from Alaska. He also wondered if she had huskies for her sled team. This led us to talking about Siberia and where it was. I mentioned that I wasn't even sure if it was still called Siberia. (shut up, I'm TERRIBLE with Geography- just like most Americans- ask Sarah Palin, she knows what I'm talking about) He asked why it wouldn't still be Siberia and I told him that sometimes when one country takes over another country, they will change its name.

We discussed why countries go to war in the first place and he decided that if he were ever president, he would make

"a new rule that you can only have a war for a good reason."

I told him that was a great idea, but why not take it even further and have no war. He pondered that for a moment and asked what we would do if we couldn't have war. "We could talk and try to solve the problem that way." I suggested.

"Oh yeah! Like if there were two countries fighting over the same piece of land, I would just have someone from each country come with their mayor and they could say something like 'Hey, if you give us half of this piece of land, we'll give you protection.' and then the other guys would say 'Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, ok!' and then no one would get hurt and no one would die and no one would be sad."

"Yeah, that would be great." I replied.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Is it bad?

That I just used my Dyson to clean off my dining room table? I also had to empty it twice just to vacuum around crap in our small living room. I could make coats for homeless kids just by going without vacuuming for a week.

So It Has Been 100 Years

and I want you to know that at LEAST once a week, I thought of something blogworthy and then didn't have time or forgot that I had a blog or whatever and now I can't remember a damn thing. We had Christmas (as I'm sure many of you did) and it was a huge hit. Went to Disney- that is a whole blog post in and of itself that I'm not sure I have the energy to be sufficiently witty about, so it will have to stay on hold for another day. Then we got home and I had become an aunt again to a Miss Taylor Christine Bea (pics in Flickr------------------->). Once I was settled and home, I went on a real reading jag. You know, sometimes you just get a hankering to read something that you don't have to follow the paragraphs around the ads or fight with your scroll bar and then lose your place. So I was reading everything I had that I hadn't read in a while and generally driving my husband batty (he hates to read). Finally, this past Saturday I had my very first wedding and let me just say that I am so glad that this was a friend and I was doing it for free. I just may have had to slit my wrists if I had the added pressure of making sure everything was worth what she paid. So I am just now finished with editing over 2,000 pictures from Disney, Baby Taylor and this wedding and I'm pooped. However, I am looking forward to getting back to posting here. Notice how I didn't say I *promised* I'd be on here more- I can't be tied down like that, I'm too much of a procrastinator.