My New Mom-vention

One of the many things we women sacrifice when we become mothers is our butts. I don't mean because they change in size or shape. I've never had the ideal size and shape in that area anyway. I'm talkin' temperature, people.

It's a mere 20 degrees here today, and that fact has alerted me to the amount of time I spend with my posterior hanging out of the car fastening and unfastening car seat straps, changing diapers in the seat of the car, and chasing upside down sippy cups that claim to be leak-free. I've been home nearly a half hour and my butt still hasn't thawed completely.

I've come up with a solution. I'm going to take a staple gun and attach a roman shade to the roof of the car just above the door. That way when I go to put the child in the car and assume the best-face-forward position, I can just drop that shade over my behind and keep it nice and toasty warm.

Maybe I can make and sell my invention to other moms out there. I'll call it the Toasty Tushie. What a great way to make some extra Christmas cash!

If that doesn't work, maybe I could just sell ad space on my butt.

HO HO HO!!

Nathan learned a new word!!! Okay, maybe it doesn’t technically qualify as
a word, but when anything new is added to his list of five kid-tested,
Nathan-approved words, I get really excited.

So far, the only words he’ll say on a regular basis are:

Mama, Dada, Bite, Hat, and Hot

It isn’t that he only knows five words. His first word was ball. He’s also
said bath, fish, reach, and please. There is a subtle difference in the
“Mama” he uses for me and the “Mama” that he uses for his Grandmas. It’s
hard to discern, but it’s there. My mom even got him to say Santa exactly
two times. He also says Uh-uh and Uh-huh, but I’m not sure if they count.

Evidently my little man is kind of a word snob. He’ll learn a word, say it
once or twice and then decided it doesn’t taste right in his mouth and spit
it out like the macaroni I tried to give him when he really wanted a
carrot, even though the night before his whole dinner consisted of nothing
but macaroni and Tuesday was carrot day. My baby boy actually ate an entire
meal of nothing but lima beans one time. But that’s a subject for another
post. The word finicky comes to mind.

I should add that he does have a few animal sounds in his repertoire. He
does a mean puppy imitation complete with arfs and panting. He also shouts
his own special version of Yee-haw when he’s riding his Wonder Horse. He
kind of mixes it together with Hi-Yah! And he gives a funny little Karate
kick when he says it. I call him the Cowboy Ninja, but once again, I
digress.

So now his vocabulary consists of the following:

Mama, Dada, Bite, Hot , Hat

& HO HO HO!!

I taught him to say what Santa Claus says! It was hard to pry it out of him
right at first, but now he kind of thinks that’s Santa’s name. When I went
to pick him up from the sitter’s the other night, he got really excited and
grabbed my hand to drag me over to the Christmas tree, shouting “Mama!
Mama!” over and over again. He pointed excitedly to a Santa Claus ornament
and said, “HO HO HO!”

A couple of nights ago, we were out to eat with my mom and my aunt, and a
big biker guy with a white beard walked out of the back dining room.
Nathan’s eyes got really big and he pointed to the man and said, “HO HO
HO!”

It’s so exciting this year, because he’s starting to figure this Christmas
thing out. We visited Santa at the mall (no pics yet, it was a trial run)
and then lo and behold, we saw him shopping at Wal-Mart that same evening.
He had candy canes and toilet paper in his cart. When ya gotta go…

Nathan gets really excited when he see’s Santa on tv, and he likes to watch
Christmas shows, especially the Grinch. He didn’t care much for the live
action movie – that Grinch was a little scary at times – but he loved the
cartoon. He cracked me up when we watched it together. When that old Grinch
was stealing the Christmas tree, Nathan’s eyes were as big as saucers and
his eyebrows were raised as far as they could go. It was such a look of
deep concern! I said, “Nathan, he took their Christmas tree!!” and he just
kind of nodded, not wanting to tear his eyes away. Oh, the suspense! When
the Grinch saved the sleigh from falling down the mountain, and he picked
it up high over his head, Nathan threw both arms up and cheered! It was so
cute I almost cried. But I’m a bit of a crier in my old age.

I can’t wait until Christmas Eve. We’re going to put out cookies for Santa,
and I’m excited to see what he thinks when he wakes up and finds them
eaten! This having a kid thing is pretty gosh-darned fun!

Wow! Do you think I could Use! More! Exclamation! Points!!!! Somebody slap
me.

April wasn't really THAT long ago!

So I decided to start blogging again. That means all of my fans that have been checking out this site on a daily basis with bated breath (I looked that up and yes, I spelled it right) just waiting for new little bits of wit and wisdom can finally sigh that satisfied, just-finished-Thanksgiving-dinner, lip-smacking sigh and live happily ever after. I've really missed the sweet catharsis of spilling my guts to the whole interweb even if only six people actually read it. Maybe six is pushing it. Regardless, I like being able to vent and steam and overflow all over my computer.

Wow, that sounds messy.

Anyhoo, I'll re-inaugurate the ol' blog with a Thanksgiving post. The food was wonderful, as was my lovely cousin's hospitality (read: bravery, for letting my huge, noisy family take over their beautiful house for a day) but most of the rest of the day can neatly be summed up with the following visual aid:



The morning was pretty nice. I got up and put the parade on tv for Little Man while I made cinnamon rolls. By made, I mean popped open a tube and stuck in the oven, of course. We munched on those and then I made (this time really made) not one, but two casseroles to take to dinner. We got dressed in our finest room-for-eatin' britches and headed to the Village Inn to visit with Hubby's family before heading to my cousin's. That's about when the graph started its abrupt descent. I started to feel really lousy. Little Man had been mucho sicko for a couple of days earlier in the week, and true to form, it hit Mama at the most inconvenient time. Getting sick on Turkey Day is a true testament to the unfairness of life.

I muscled my way through dinner, though, because I refuse to miss out on the face-stuffing just because my puny little stomach was begging me for the love of God, don't do it! By early evening I was regretting it, though, and not long after that the Hubby joined in my misery. We bowed out of the domino game early and headed home. The puking went on all night long. I'll spare you any other details.

Oh yeah, sometime just before the puking, the Hubby was taking home a friend who had joined us for Thanksgiving dinner and he backed into a parked car and got a ticket. So all in all, our Thanksgiving was kind of a bust.

We're all feeling much better now, but we did manage to share our disgusting germs with my mom (sorry Grandma) and she was suffering through it yesterday. Hope you're getting over it quick, Mom!

So all who have re-joined me on the blogwagon, thanks for listening to me complain about my holiday, and keep your fingers crossed that our Christmas won't resemble our Thanksgiving in any way.

Buh-Bye!

Swag

I had to share the sweet swag bag I got from work the other day. It was Associate Appreciation day, (coincidentally, it was also Admisitrative Professionals Day.) We were so spoiled!! First we got a goody bag. The photo shows the sign that came with it, outlining the significance of each treat within. (Click it to enlarge.) At morning break we got continental breakfast, at lunch we got deli sandwiches and chips, and at afternoon break we got ice cream bars and cookies. Then they passed out the cute little thermal lunch bags with a stress ball and a coaster inside. I felt pretty darned appreciated for a girl who's been watching someone else work for a week and a half.

Stuff

I had to post some photos from my super-fun going away party from Hobby Lobby. There was another person quitting at the same time as me, and our awesome (ex)co-workers threw us a going away party at the bowling alley. We had a blast! I haven't bowled in forever, but I don't think I did too badly. I played four games and I scored a 103, a 117, and the last two games were both 120. I was so proud of myself. We all had a blast and we had some really good chocolate cake, and they even gave us presents!! We got a pretty Wood Wick Candle, a hand-made beaded bookmark, and a $25 gas card. Aren't those Hobby Lobby people awesome?!? I'm going to hang the bookmark on the wall of my cubie, and put the candle on my desk. I'm gonna miss working with my crazy Hobby Lobby friends. Especially my favorite one... Yeah right, like I'm gonna pick a favorite. Some of them will be reading this! lol



Speaking of cubies, my new job is so awesome! I love it so much!! I keep talking about it all the time. I'll just pop up and say, "Hey Bryan, did I tell you there's a cappucino machine in our cafeteria, and I can fill my 34 oz. cup with soda for 50 cents, and I can take an hour and a half lunch if I want, and my phone has an earpiece so I don't have to use my hands, and my chair adjusts in 14 different places and..." and he says, "Yes! Yes! For the love of God, yes! Now shut the hell up!" and then he stabs himself in both ears with a pencil so he won't have to listem to me anymore. I guess I can use his mp3 player now.

I'm such a dork I've been shopping online for all kinds of cool cubicle gear. I even started a Kaboodle list for them. Check it out here. I haven't been able to buy a pencil holder because I haven't found just the right one yet, and I believe there is one special set of office supplies out there for everyone, and you just have to keep going through life until you find it.

You may kiss the bridesmaids!

First of all, I had a really good first day of work yesterday. It was just orientation. My real training will start Monday. I got to learn all about my vacation time, sick pay, floating holidays, insurance, discounts and perks. And I got to see my cubicle! It's awesome. It's just waiting for me to decorate it up. I have some time, though, because I'll be in training (at someone else's cubicle) for a while. I'll just be watching someone else work for a few weeks. In the meantime, I have to figure out what kind of plant thrives in a cubicle (and is hard to kill).

Last night we went to a friend's wedding, and I learned that my little guy was born to party. He was a very fussy, tired little turd for most of the afternoon and evening, but when the reception got under way and the dance music started, he was the life of the party. He danced all night. All the girlies couldn't get enough of him. I have some pics to share and a video, so check him out:

*Glitter Frames by Lindsay Jane Designs
Bryan was a groomsman and he looks awesome in a tux if I do say so myself!

Munchin' on some yummy wedding cake!

My little dude is gettin' some hot bridesmaid action on the dance floor. So many women, so little time between naps!

This little sleeping beauty is the flower girl. She slept through most of the reception on the stage right in front of the dj booth. Guess she partied too hard at the bachelorette party.


I took some video of Nathan bustin' a move, but I'm kind of a dumbass, and I did it all holding the camera sideways without even thinking about it. I found a way to turn it, but it looks a bit squished. And it's super dark because the dance floor was dark, but here it is anyway:

Go sell cute somplace else. We're all stocked up here.

In fact, he's got cute running out of his ears. (Which is a damn sight better than what's been running out of his nose.) Anywhooooo. Here are the vids I wanted to post the other day. Enjoy!

Three More Days!!

I totally forgot to blog about my good news! I got a new job! I start Friday. I'm super excited because I'll have a grown up job, with a desk, and nice clothes, and yep, you guessed it:

A cubicle!!!

I will be a payroll clerk for a large company that owns a bunch of grocery stores and gas stations. I'll make a dollar more an hour, be guaranteed 40 hours, have benefits, flex scheduling, and did I mention?

A cubicle!!!

Okay, okay. I'll stop. It's just that I'm super-psyched about the whole prospect. I've been dreaming of a cubicle job for years. My own little world with a desk and a computer and a plant and a photo of my family and a Dilbert comic hanging on the wall. It would only be more awesome if my little cubie were pink. Laugh if you want, but you know you'd be jealous.

I'll miss working with all my friends at Hobby Lobby. I really do like that job, but I just need a little more cheddar, if you know what I mean. So I can buy more... well... cheddar. And a bigger place so I can get my little muffin out of a closet and into a real room. And I'm gonna have weekends off!!!!!!!!! I've never had a job where I've had weekends off.

So anyway, if you happen to think of it this Friday morning, say a quick little prayer that my first day goes really well and that it rains Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies all weekend. (It can't hurt to ask, right?)

I can't remember the last time I blogged so many lines without talking about what adorable thing Nathan just did the other day. I taught him to ride 'em cowboy and yell "Yee-Haw!" Of course, his yee-haw sounds more like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" but it's the enthusiasm that counts. I was going to end this post with an adorable video or two that I took of Nathan playing in his play pen, but YouTube is being a bi-yotch and it's down for maintenance. The nerve!! So you'll just have to be satisfied with a couple of adorable photos.


*Frame cluster by Sherry Tierney.

Oh, and one more thing:

A cubicle!!!

A Whole Mess O' Egg Huntin'

So today was Nathan's first Easter Egg Hunt. Didja really think I wasn't going to clog up the internet with a ton of adorable photos??
Nathan is eagerly awaiting the big hunt. He can see the eggs in the yard, but he has to wait for Leah to change clothes. Darn girls!!

And we're still not sure this was a smart fashion decision.

Grandma had to help Nathan get started. Once he found one he didn't want to put it in the basket. He just wanted to carry one in each hand.

Two eggs, two hands, all set!!

He finally got the hang of it, though.

They are so good at sharing. It's amazing, really. But Leah and Nathan are best buds, so they don't mind.

Dividing up all the loot!

"Mom, why are we working so hard to find eggs, when these rocks are all over the place?"

Nathan finally discovered there's goodies in them-there eggs!! Here he is with a mouthfull of jelly beans.

This girl is a nut!!

All in all, we had a fantastic day! The weather was good, the kids had a ball, and no one got sick on candy. I'll wrap things up with a little video of the kids dancing together. They crack me up!!

A Quickie!

I don't have much time before work, but I have to brag on my boy. His first word is officially "ball," said within the last month. He would hold up a ball and say, "Bah" and we were so proud! Of course he'd call every toy a ball. When Bryan gets home, Nathan points at him and grins and says "Da" and that's exciting, but he calls the chair "da" and the tv, and the computer, and the cat, etc. etc.

But yesterday, he said two complete words, in context! I was so excited! We went to visit my mom at the bank, and in one of the offices there's a fish bowl on the desk. We were looking at the fish and I kept saying, "Is that a fish, Nathan? Fish?" and at first he said, "shshsh." It was more of a sound than a word, and then he got it. He said "fish" very plainly a couple of times. Then last night, I was eating a brownie, and he walked right up to me and said, "Bite!" Just like that. With puctuation and everything. I was so excited, I fed him TWO brownies, bite by bite, just because everytime he said, "bite" I couldn't say no.

I'm so proud of my boy!!! He'll be reciting Shakespeare in no time!

Not Yet a Month Late

Faren motivated me to get off my butt, (or rather ON my butt, in my new computer chair) and post some of Nathan's birthday pictures. So here we go:

Here they are, Their Majesties, King Daddy, and Prince Nathan. My mom, a.k.a. Martha Frickin' Stewart, put up castle walls and built a whole throne room for our guys.

This was the first tentative taste of birthday cake. Nathan really is a pretty neat eater. He's not one to just dive right in with both hands. The first time he got a little frosting on his fingers, he wrinkled his nose and tried to shake it off.

Then he figured out just how good that frosting really was. He kept feeding it to me too.Yummy!!

And this is what was left of the cake. I'm not real sure he actually got any cake. But I think he ate about a pound of frosting.

We told King Daddy he had to eat his cake with his fingers, too. But he outsmarted us with his Go-Go-Gadget-Birthday-Candle-Chopsticks.

So, hypothetically speaking, if a one-year-old boy gets a Thomas the Train Ball Pit from one grandma, and an actual throne from the other, not to mention numerous other gifts and a huge party, does that make him spoiled? Nah, I didn't think so either.

Glitter frames are from Web Designs by Kristi.

So I Joined the ADSR

That's the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race. You have a partner, and you go around completing challenges at all the major digi-scrapping sites. If you make it to the end, you get a ton of prizes. My partner is my fellow chat brat, Fantacy. She's an awesome scrapper and designer, and she's fabulously ornery, which makes us a perfect match.

This week's challenge was for us to scrap a page together. We each were responsible for half of the page, and then we had to put them together. Here is our fabulous, fantastic, wonderful, awesome page:





Aren't we adorable???

Alexander called. He wants his day back.

(One of my favorite books as a child.)

If you're looking for a laugh, this may not be the place to be. I've had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and I'm here to complain.

Did you ever have one of those days that just made you want to take a vacation from yourself? I'd like to request a little time off to be someone else. Someone who didn't have to stay up half the night with a one-year-old who spiked a temperature of 103 only to decide that 5:30am was the perfect time to wake up for the day. Someone who didn't spill soda on an envelope full of her baby's first studio portraits. Someone who didn't have to spend $25 on antibiotics only to drop the bottle and spill half of it on the kitchen floor before even administering a single dose. I just need a day off from being me. I told Bryan he had to put Nathan to bed tonight because I was afraid to carry him that far.

I promise a happy post with birthday photos really soon. Today just wasn't the day.

Seacrest out.

'Nuff Said.

On Superbowls, Jugs, and Croc Wrestling

Hello Internet. It's been a while.

We survived Nathan's first and second ear infections, the latter being a bi-lateral one. "Bi-Lateral" is just a fancy-schmancy way to say "it's in both ears." We have no idea how long the poor little guy suffered with them, because both times he never indicated there was anything wrong with his widdle ears. He got a cold he just couldn't conquer, and when it settled in his eyes, we took him to the doctor. The poor baby was waking up with his eyes glued shut by this yucky green goo. We were given oral antibiotics for the ear infection, and antibiotic eye drops for the eyes (<--duh).

Here's a list of things I think would be only slightly harder than putting drops in both eyes of a writhing, screaming 11 month old:

*Wrestling Cranky Crocodiles
*Flossing the teeth of a giant Great White shark
*Curling the mane of a big hungry lion
*Giving Freddy Krueger a French manicure

You get the picture. He didn't really like the drops. He acted as if we were dangling boiling oil over his beautiful baby blues. It was, in a word, unpleasant. But the drops did work. His eyes cleared up within a day or two. He seems to have kicked the cold, too. At this point, we're all pretty healthy. But I'm not going to say that too loudly.



Aunt Erma was here to visit. We had a whole family get together so we could all see her before she heads back to the west coast. Nathan had a ball with cousin Renee's kids. I think he's fallen in love with Kiersten. He just kept hugging her and wouldn't let her go. It was so cute! She loved it, too, because Nathan will rough-house with her. Her little brother Matthew won't.



Speaking of Matthew, he and Nathan were sitting on the floor together, playing, and one of Matthew's sisters tickled him which made his shirt come up a little. Nathan sat there with a totally serious face and, reaching out with a steady deliberation, placed his finger in Matthew's belly button. It was like the baby version of a secret handshake. Matthew just looked at Nathan knowingly, and I swear he gave a slight nod, as if to say, "I feel ya, dawg." These two are destined to be BFFs.



We went to Mom's for Superbowl. I thought it was a pretty good game. Especially since Bryan was the only one in the room rooting for New England. Ha ha! I brought a dozen little stuffed footballs, so everytime there was a bad call or the play went in the wrong team's favor we threw them at the television. Nathan thought that was hilarious. The commercials were better than last year. I especially liked the ones with the talking baby who's trading stocks on the internet. Very funny stuff.

My stepdad, Chuck constantly carries a ginormous thermal mug of Sierra Mist everywhere he goes. It has come to be known as Chuck's jug. Nathan has learned that Grandpa's cup contains great sugary goodness, and since I'm a bad mommy who lets her child occasionally drink soda, he loves to share Grandpa's drink. The jug Chuck had on Superbowl Sunday was probably big enough to share with all of the New York Giants twice. I believe it holds 100 oz. I just love this picture of Nathan drinking from Grandpa's giant jug. Only his widdle feet show below it!



Now that's refreshing! (Insert cheesey commercial smile here.)

Well, Internet, that ought to be a long enough post for me to get back into your good graces. I'm off to beddy-bye. G'Night!

I Gotta Brag!

I've been featured on Simply Yin's blog!! I have downloaded and used several of her freebie templates and she has posted not one, but three of my pages on her blog!! Check it out!!
<<Simply Yin>>

I'm Raising a Chicken Hawk!

Remember Henry Hawk from Looney Tunes? I may have to change Nathan's name. The other night I just happened to leave my dinner unattended for a minute or two, and this is what I found.



He stole my chicken wings!! It got really quiet, so I said, "Bryan, what's the baby doing?" He looked over and said, "He's eatin' a chicken." He had one in each hand and he'd slurped most of the breading off of one. I was laughing so hard I could barely hold onto the camera, and he was just gnawing away and looking at me like, "Whatsa matter, Mom? Never seen anybody eating chicken before?"

He's so darned cute and so smart, too. The other night we were over at Mom and Chuck's and he found Grandpa's cup. Chuck always carries a big thermal jug of watered-down Sierra Mist, and he likes to share it with Nathan. Usually we give him drinks by holding our finger over the end of the straw and putting the other end in his mouth. Well when he found Granddad's cup, he grabbed the straw, pulled it out of the cup, put his widdle-bitty finger over the end and stuck it back in the cup. Mom and I cracked up. He's definitly learning by watching all of us. I guess we're going to have to stop picking our noses and chewing our toenails in front of him.