What do you mean no high chairs?

April 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As far as I know there have been vast movements made in the past twenty years to make sure that businesses, buildings, restaurants, etc. can accommodate anyone with any particular need.  And yet I found myself in dire need of one of the most simplest of accommodations the other day at a local sandwich shop near my house.  I had about ten different errands to run and squeezing in lunch in the middle of them was going to give me a fifteen minute “break.”  I walk in and order, looking around for the best spot for myself and my ten month old.  As I ask the ever-so enthusiastic fifteen year old where the high chairs are located to which he replies, “Oh we don’t have those, but everyone always wants them.”

I was shocked – this was the first place I had ever gone that simply didn’t have a high chair?  How could it be?  How can a restaurant not cater towards families with children two and under?  I didn’t know what to do, it was 95 degrees outside so eating in the car would be highly uncomfortable and I had picked this particular sandwich shop because it was right next to my next errand so going home to eat and then go back out would be the biggest hassle ever.  I decided to grin and bare it and have my daughter sit on my lap.  Boy, was that a mistake.  Later as I was walking through the grocery store finishing up my errands, complete with stains of tomatoes, mustard and Cheetos dust all over my white shirt, I was still baffled by the fact that they couldn’t accommodate my daughter.  I decided I must take action and talk to my city councilman or whatever it is you do when you’re pissed off about something… more on that pursuit in the future; but for now I just need a stinking high chair.

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Party or Not to Party? That is the Question!

April 10, 2012 by 1 Comment

Amazingly, my daughter’s first birthday is quickly approaching.  I have yet to make up my mind if I should throw her a birthday party complete with invites, food, decor, party favors, the works OR if we should do a simple celebration at home with just my husband and myself.  So many of my friends as well as moms on mommy-blogs have already begun planning for their child’s first birthday party, in fact, they began months ago!  Sometimes I am amazed with the amount of effort some people put in these parties, and then other times I spend hours on the TomKat Studio blog and dream of all the amazing things I can do to celebrate my child’s birth…

I’m just too neurotic and worry over every single question; how many to invite? Only invite people with kids?  Do I serve lunch or hors devours? Too many concerns!  We don’t have any family here, so I would be putting a group of people in a room together – and half of them don’t even know each other! I’m a nervous hostess, always worrying if people are having fun rather than having fun myself, so the idea of putting someone in an awkward social situation on behalf of my baby’s birthday might just be too much for me to bear.  Then again, she only turns one, once, so who cares about all of my friends?  They can deal!

So, alas, I’m still on the fence, and I know my time to waffle is almost over.  A decision must be made if I am actually going to put invitations in the mail…Any miraculous insight?  Please share!

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Fun Find Friday – April Fool’s Day

March 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In honor of the year’s silliest day, I’ve made a list of April Fool’s jokes that are sure to make your kids laugh.

  • Unscrew the cap on your faucet and place one or more Crayola Color Bath Dropz in before replacing the cap.
  • Serve their breakfast cereal in mixing bowls and eat with serving spoons.
  • Turn your house upside down the night before – picture frames, baskets, toys, small appliances or even furniture are all fun ideas.
  • Tape the handle on the kitchen sink sprayer down.  This is a classic April Fool’s joke that never gets old.
  • Place a glob of Vaseline on the bottom of the door handle so slippery hands can’t open the door.
  • Buy realistic looking bugs or critters and place them inside your child’s sandwich, yogurt or other snacks.
  • Place a few drops of food coloring in your child’s glass of milk.
  • Serve meals backwards for the day starting with dessert in the morning breakfast in the evening.
  • Sprinkle a little bit of salt on your child’s toothbrush the night before.
  • Place glitter or confetti on top of fan blades and watch it scatter when your child turns the fan on.

What are some of your favorite April Fool’s jokes?

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Did that SERIOUSLY just happen?

March 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This evening during the mellow time after our daughter goes to bed and before we end up falling asleep on the couch, I was seriously taken aback.  To be quite honest, I was floored.  It was about 9:30pm and my husband had just finished a little snack of Ritz crackers and cheese.  Out of the corner of my eye I witness him brush the crumbs from his snack off the coffee table directly onto the floor.  As if that wasn’t enough, he then took his hand and brushed said crumbs under our couch.

I couldn’t believe it.  We had seriously JUST had the discussion about how I was trying so hard to keep the tile floors clean because our newly crawling daughter enjoys putting every tidbit she finds in her mouth, be it leaves, dirt or dog food.  I will admit, I went a little nuts, imploring him, “SERIOUSLY, what is wrong with your brain?!?  Why, when you eat snacks, to you revert to a fifth grader?!”  He sputtered out a multitude of excuses such as, “I didn’t know what I was doing” as well as “I really didn’t even notice!”  How can this be?  How can the male psyche litter his own home?  This too, coming from a man that honks at people who throw cigarettes out their window on the freeway.  ”What gives them the right to throw out their trash on the street?!” This is what he barks at me when I tell him he might need to cool it a bit, and yet now he literally just dumped food on our floor.

Although my shock and disgust still prevail, I am pleased to say that I got a free bathroom cleaning out of the deal; needless to say, he also was in charge of sweeping the floors.

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10 Ways Motherhood is Like College

March 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Nobody ever said motherhood would be easy or glamorous, but as I was sitting here it hit me.  I’ve done this before.  Well, not this exactly, but it was close.  It was in college.  Yes, motherhood is oh so similar to the college experience.

10.  You are awake at 2:00 a.m. with a bottle in your hand.

9.  The pantry is filled with Easy Mac and cheap wine.

8.  Sweatpants and a dirty T-shirt is a perfectly acceptable outfit to wear out in public.

7.  The boy in your life just wants to get under your shirt.

6.  You are frequently woken up by noises coming from the room next door.

5.  Pulling all-nighters multiple times a week is normal.

4.  Having vomit in your hair is not all that uncommon.

3.  You are incredibly proud of a loud burp.

2.  Sleeping in a bed that is not yours is a common occurrence.

1.  After a long night, you wake up with a pounding headache and bags under your eyes.

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Leap Frog Won’t Let Me Say Bad Words!

March 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

My daughter was given a hand-me-down Leap Frog Caterpillar that teaches the alphabet.  She loves this toy and plays with it every chance she gets.  You can put the toy on different modes, and the letter mode makes the sounds of each letter when you press the corresponding foot.  Now, I’m all for educational toys, but you gotta have some fun too right?  So naturally, my husband and I start making the caterpillar sound out inappropriate things.  However, three letters in to trying to make the caterpillar say “damn” and all we get is a giggle.  My husband and I look at each other very perplexed.  We try it again, and this time the caterpillar says to us, “haha, that tickles!”  We couldn’t believe it!  We tried a variety of other curse words and the caterpillar wouldn’t say a one!  You get two letters in and he knows what we’re trying to say and we get a giggle in response every time!

We were seriously amazed that Leap Frog took the time to program their toys to be unable to say “bad” words.  In a way I thought it was very clever, nice as a mother to not have to worry that your kid is going and trying to show-off profanities for their friends.  But then I reconsidered.  I mean, kids go through the bad words phase maybe in first or second grade at the earliest.  Is my first grader still going to be playing with this caterpillar?  I doubt it.  Even if she is, and she happens to figure out that the caterpillar won’t say “poop” if you try and make it, isn’t that just something kinda fun every kid does as a rite of passage?  I mean who hasn’t giggled for the two to three weeks following the discovery of writing “boobs” on your calculator?  What I originally thought as a considerate stroke of design, I now have decided is an overreaction to what could be considered a bit of innocent fun.  In the meantime, we still enjoy spelling out “S. H….hee hee that giggles!”  for a good laugh.

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You Gotta Have a Goal, Do You Have a Goal?

March 13, 2012 by 1 Comment

This year I made New Year’s Resolution to run in a 5K race.  I decided to use the Couch 2 5K program and literally begin on January 1st.  The program was exactly nine weeks long and I registered for the Run for Ryan House on March 3rd.  This gave me absolutely no room for error.  First of all, let me say that the C25K program is awesome and that I went from total sloth to running a mile before I knew it, and athlete I am not.  I am pleased to say that on March 3rd I dragged my butt out of bed at 5:30am and ran the race, yes, ran the whole way, and I honestly don’t know the last time I was so proud of myself.  Not only for actually accomplishing a New Year’s Resolution for once, but for accomplishing something where I really had to push myself physically, mentally and even emotionally.

Now, a week after the run, I am definitely slowing down.  It seems like I’ve lost all motivation; today I was running and when I didn’t have that C25k app voice in my ears telling me to keep plugging away, I decided not to plug at all.  I stopped after only 1.4 miles – and I hadn’t done that in nine weeks!  I was so disappointed in myself and couldn’t believe it!  Where did my motivation go?  Where was my energy?!  It hit me on my cool down walk home; I didn’t have a goal!  I had spent those nine weeks knowing that I had signed up for that race and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, so I had to get my ass in gear!  Now, I’ve got nothing to run towards, no big feat, no finish line, and therefore, I stopped way short.

So naturally I decided to honker down and set myself another goal and push myself just a bit farther.  Pat’s Run it is!  4.2 miles, just a smidge more, and I know I can do it!  Who’s with me?!?

P.S.  Comment here if you know the movie to which the title of this post references… there may just be a virtual prize for you!

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Yes, that’s my kid with the snotty nose.

March 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Before becoming a parent I have to admit that I judged mothers that had children with boogers, snot, dried snot, and runny noses just walking around.  It seriously grossed me out, especially when the older ones figured it out and would stick their tongues up there and lick it off.  I would look on an wonder why has this mother completely abandoned hygiene for her child.  I now know why: it just isn’t worth it.  At nine months old my daughter just went through her first cold.  I feel pretty lucky that we went so long, but this one definitely hit with a vengeance.  I was honestly amazed at how much snot could come out of that little head.  (Sidenote, if you don’t own a Nose Frieda, this should be in your medicine cabinet today!)  Soon enough her nose was very irritated and the slightest graze from me to remove any tracings of snot would result in a full blown meltdown.

After a couple of days in the house and the worse of the cold being over I decided to venture out into the world.  I thought a simple trip to Target would do the trick, we’d get some fresh air, a Chai Tea Latte and do some perusing for cute outfits.  Of course I brought the boogie wipes if there was a disaster.  And disaster there was.  After a sneezing fit I looked at my poor child who had snot running down her face and tried to get the wipes in time but to no avail, she of course went to rub it away and smeared it all over her face.  The inevitable cleanup afterwords led to a cataclysmic tantrum in the middle of the snack aisle causing passersby to consider calling CPS on me.  It was in that moment that I knew I would rather have a snot-faced kid than one that was acting like this.

And it was in that moment that I became the woman I most feared, the woman who ignores hygiene.  Throughout the rest of our Target trip there were no massive nose blowouts, but there definitely was a small snot trickle from time to time.  Did I wipe it away?  No, I did not, I left it there.  We’d been cooped up in the house for days, I needed some time out and about and got forbid if some snot was going to stop me.  So, yes, that’s my kid with the snotty nose, judge away.

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Makes You Laugh…

February 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Saw this and had to share…

 

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Oscar Night!

February 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Oh how I love the Academy Awards!  I would always get so excited to root for my favorite movies and actors of the year.  It wasn’t until just now that I realized why I am so bored during the Oscars this year; my daughter.  Yes, technically she is the root cause.  Due to her presence in this world I have only seen two, yes sadly only two, movies this entire year.  Harry Potter, my choice, and Moneyball, his choice.  Years ago I would have seen at least every movie nominated for Best Picture and almost certainly all the others.  I was a movie fanatic – it was pretty much an every weekend event.  I suppose I still am; probably why I got so excited to tune in tonight, but it is certainly not the same.  But quite honestly, while I sit here, I feel as though I really haven’t missed much.  We’ll eventually see them with Netflix from the comfort of my own couch, with my own snacks, where I can pause for a pee break and where I don’t have to miss tucking my daughter in at night.  So even though I may have no idea what’s going on, I still love the Academy Awards.

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