Poopy Patrol

Potty! This is a common theme in our house these days. Little bean is on the verge of being a new member of the potty pros. By verge I mean, every once in a while, we score, the aim is spot on and BAM!!! Into the toilet it goes.  The rest of the time, like today, not so much. 

Today. Ahhhh I do so love a good story.  Today, little bean was incredibly upset at the prospect of putting on a new diaper. "No Dipe, No dipe!" How can any mom not cave under that sort of pressure. So, ok, no dipe but tell mommy if you need to use the potty. OK. Book? Sure, no problem. Lets read a book together.  Halfway through "new hat" (which means the new cat in the hat book we got from Nana and Grampa) little bean decides a change is in order so marches over to choose a new book.  Ahhhh, a moment to catch my breath as the book case does the entertaining for a moment. 

Oh wait, what's this? "Uh-Oh" a puddle.  Yep, little bean peed and it didn't just hit the floor. Oh no, it got on toys, feet, toy box, it was a MESS! Ahh well, par for the course right? Every single parent in the history of potty training parents has endured a puddle. No big deal, just hold tight little bean and we will wipe it away.  You can sit on the potty in the mean time.  As I book it to the cleaning cabinet to grab my ever present disinfectant and clean up the soggy mess, little bean decided to venture off and find a new adventure.  In the bathroom (our kiddo potty was sitting on the floor in the bedroom so as to make it easy access). It took me 2.4 seconds to realize I better go investigate the quiet. I find little bean waving into the toilet saying bye-bye. Holy Canoli!!!! Kiddo just hopped up on the real potty and pooped in there. Wowser! As I step in for a closer investigation and to cheer little bean on...yep, you guessed it. That warm, squishy sensation under my foot was not a welcome feeling.  Oh there was poop in the potty for sure but not before it landed on the floor to! AAAHHHHhhhhhhhh, gross. So, I plop bean onto the potty once again and start frantically grabbing for wipes to unstick my stuck foot and I look down to notice that I am not alone in my squishy toed adventure.  Oh no, little bean has POOP everywhere from the waist down! Awesome. 

Into the bathtub we go (sadly we were in the half bath and had to venture through a bedroom and down the hall to the main bathroom but with some fancy footed heal stepping and me carrying little bean out in front of me like a toxic waste specimen we made it without incident) and we proceeded to clean the poopy mess.  If time, grace and precision were being scored we totally would have won at least bronze if pooping were an Olympic event.  Lesson learned, make sure business is totally complete before beginning operation clean up.

Lets hope for a less poopy adventure on our next potty break!

Best of luck to all of my potty training comrades.

Inbox Invasion

I get the best emails.  Not because I'm popular mind you, but because I'm a sucker.  My latest favorite is:

"$20 for $40 of Spider Vein or Stretch Mark Cream" 

Seriously, how do they do this??? How did "they" channel  into my inner woman and know that "hey, this one is bound to be an emotional train-wreck and self-conscious enough to need this stuff!!! We've got a live one here people!" (I didn't buy it, just to clarify...) I mean, I log onto Facebook and there are 12 different advertisements touting diapers and maternity clothes, careers and baby bottles.  Jeez. What do they think I do in my spare time anyway? It's amazing to me that my inbox can fill up so quickly with random crap.  If I thought I was terrible at housecleaning...well lets just welcome in Cyber-cleaning. Yikes! Can anyone say new email account? Yeah. That's how I deal with it alright.  Out with the old, in with the new.

I try to filter the important stuff. Like, what if there is an amazing bra sale somewhere and I were to miss it just because I shut down my old email address??!?? That would be seriously disturbing...especially if you read my last post and remember how desperate a girl can get for great over the shoulder-boulder holders (Quit Slacking...Read it Here) I mean, to quote How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days "this is death kong 5!!!" (probably one of my most favorite girl movies of all time...just sayin') The world of great support is no joking matter.  That being said, I've never actually deleted an old email account, I simply keep them and check them periodically but move on to bigger and better things for those totally random but really important friend emails that I get one, maybe two, times a month.  Being frivolous is not my normal approach to life, I'm usually not so wasteful and much more conscious of my footprint; however, the thought of cyber-cleaning really makes my skin crawl...It's just not fun.  In the words of little bean, it's a bit winky (aka: sour or in this case a sore subject).

 Then to dive into the world of cyber-organization (forget cleaning, how about just putting things in the right place to begin with)...Oh, forget it! I think that if I understood fully what HTML meant and how to actually put things in their proper place, I could excel in this arena.  I mean, who doesn't like having their ducks in a row? Then again, that's when I start to lose stuff and my passwords freak out on me and I have to start all over again.  It's unreal the amount of things that can suck away your time on the internet.  Really...How did I just lose six hours trying to find out how to add a pin it button to my blog???? Yikes! (yes, this really did happen...tips and advice are appreciated)

Everyone has something to say.  I can hardly drink a cup of tea without being told what a wise old sage used to say, although that is hands down my favorite part of drinking a cup of tea.  Seriously, who doesn't love looking under the cap of their Nantucket Nectar and finding some useless fact about Nantucket that makes you instantly feel smarter and cooler.  I love that! Or learning that "body language is the universal tongue: (I kid you not, that's what my tea bag says right now!).   Some folks use their bodies for billboards (yes, I have tattoos. Plural.) and some people just plaster their vehicles with a million and two bumper stickers.  Yet, their is nothing more crazy then opening your inbox and seeing that in the last five minutes you have received twenty emails and they all have to do with selling you something and usually something that will improve you in some new-fangled manner.  Good thing I don't look to my computer for self-confidence because it really doesn't seem to think very highly of me. 

Ah well, I guess maybe I could use some spam filters but I always feel so guilty doing that! Does someone get in trouble if I report their message about spider veins as spam?  For that matter, who named it spam anyway?  I thought that was the disgusting blob-by meat that came in a can and made up part of my childhood that I refuse to touch with a ten foot pole now.  Or is that maybe the point? Probably.  I know there are ways around receiving two-hundred and fifty thousand useless emails, but it kindof just makes me feel important.  That one a month from a friend that isn't a forward or just for laughs type email has special abilities to be at the top of my email list no matter what, so lets just keep the junk coming and feel good about having a full inbox.  I think I've requested half of them anyway, although I couldn't even begin to tell you why.  Maybe this is a sign that I need to choose wisely when it comes to plugging in my email address, or maybe everyone has a junk-mail email address.  Either way, I go there when I need to feel better about my lack of socialization. 

For now, I'm going to go revel in my fake popularity and probably investigate my spider veins a little more closely to figure out how that weakness is doing these days.  Maybe it will be enough inspiration to get organized and conquer the inbox invaders once and for all!

Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo

Have you ever looked through your closet and realized that you've outgrown your own fashion.   That sense of style that you were so immensely proud of is actually just ridiculous for a 30-something professional with a baby on her hip??? Seriously, hip slung jeans that show your butt crack are just not cute any more.  Those tank tops with the built in shelf bras don't support anything that gravity has decided needs to touch the floor without the miracle of a water bra insert...in fact, when you greet the UPS dude in the tank w/shelf bra remember he's not ogling your breasts, he is shocked and appalled at the fact that they stretch that far!!! PUT ON A REAL BRA!!! (this is really just a reminder to myself...anybody who feels comfortable letting their boobs hang low, by all means, sing it sister!)

Not only has your skin changed, your hips expanded, your boobs shrunken, your belly taken on a new layer of dough, but your clothes just do not fit right.  They just don't.  I could blame little bean for this but really who can blame the kid for craving M&M's and ice cream every night while taking up residence in that sanctuary inside mommy? Nope, can't blame the kid at all for that.... So, my theory is 9 months on 9 months off and the leftovers are just called reality.  I'm not defeated, I know with some hard work and dedication I could change my body, solidify the dough, >tighten< the not so tight. I just haven't gotten there and really I'm not all that worried about it. It's the clothes that are really starting to tick me off. When did I suddenly become an adult? I went out yesterday in a t-shirt that I've had since my late twenties, cool at the time. I felt like a moron when I realized I look like a 30-something trying to hard.  I was comfortable mind you - until I was extremely uncomfortable sitting in the dentists office with little bean and a shirt with a skull and flowers on the front.  Yeah....maybe shoulda gone for a polo or something. 

Making Margaritas

After an excessively hot week there is nothing better then sitting on the couch listening to a thunderstorm outside. I'm sure you're all thinking..."fool, get off the computer!" Not to worry, it's only a random crack from time to time, in the distance, and raining gently. When things get hairy I'll shut her down. Promise.  In the meantime, I've been doing a bit of reminiscing.

Moving. It isn't something most people jump up and down at the thought of.  If they are anything like me, they drag their feet until the very last minute, scrambling to get boxes from every store in town and shoving things into garbage bags and plastic totes without labels so upon arrival it is a complete cluster F@#&!  Yeah...that's more my style.  The reminiscing has to do with previous moves.  The most recent being when I was pregnant with little bean.  Not extremely pregnant, probably about four months, just about the time where the sickness and horrifying first trimester disaster is supposed to be over. Unless you're me of course and it lasts through your entire pregnancy. Let me just tell you, stress, anxiety and pregnancy are not a pretty mix! So, I employed the help of everybody I could and I have recently learned that in my haste to move, twice, I lost many things that I loved and many things that are important - read: Important Identifying Documents! Yikes!!!! Not good. That being said, I work best under pressure and cleared out a ton of crap I never actually needed.  Couldn't have done this without the help of friends and family, that's for sure.

I am suddenly finding myself at the point of moving once again. It's an exciting move and one little bean and I will be able to approach with joy and good feelings attached.  I get to sort through the crap slowly and make sure I actually know where the important documents are stashed.  I won't have a belly sticking out a mile in front of me or fear from being 10 feet away from a toilet or other hole worthy of tossing my cookies into.  I won't break a sweat at the thought of carrying a bag of socks to the car. I have never moved with a toddler before and doing a little reading has assured me that little bean will adjust and cope well...I always believe everything I read.  I am sure I won't encounter any meltdowns or near disasters over a misplaced "bubby" aka, bunny or specific book or even a crayon for that matter!   Nope, this is the way it should be done...unless of course you can hire movers to do it for you. That just might be the way it should be done. Who knows.

Prior to the pregnant moves I've had my fair share of packing and unpacking and repacking.  I once dated someone that said he wouldn't own anything he couldn't pack within three minutes and leave.  Yep...that relationship didn't last very long! There was also the guy I once lived with that when I moved across the country and left him behind he mailed me a bunch of my stuff including my stereo without any cords and one shoe from each pair I owned. I walked around lopsided for a LONG time! Seriously though, I wasn't cold-hearted or cruel, I just knew where I didn't want to be.  Generally it wasn't with some loser that could even think of sending someone one of each of their shoes because really if that's the way he approaches life he's probably just not a very good seed.  Regardless of that fact, looking back it is a really funny story and somewhat creative.  It has also been something that has built character and the often used catch phrase..."I'll chalk that one up to life experience." Lots of life experience happens when you move.

When you're ready to leave your parents home and start exploring the world as a teenager it's like it should have happened yesterday and you can't leave fast enough.  When you are ready to embark on adventures later in life it is with caution and curiosity and sure footing.  Your ducks tend to be in a straighter row so to speak so that when you are handed some lemons in life you can find some limes and tequila and make a delicious margarita instead of panicking.  (I don't know...do you put lemon in a margarita? Whatever...you can make it however you want, if you have the time to make one life can't be that bad.)  Boxes upon boxes of chaos could cause anxiety in anybody and surely will have me panicking a little but this time I know where I'm going and I know where I've been so the right now just feels right.  I will continue to write from an Itty-Bitty living space and I can imagine the stories of packing disasters and misplaced Elmo will entertain for weeks to come but I can assure you that each pair of my shoes will remain joined at the feet.

The Not so Pleasant Bits

Makeup. You know, I've never gotten good at using the stuff... Once in a while I'll get a tip from a friend, like use blotting papers when you're out and need to look like you just walked off the runway not the playground.  (Disclaimer: I really have no clue what these are actually called. I just made that up; but to clarify they look like tracing paper with some powder on one side and they absorb that shiny sheen you get when you've been busy all day and haven't had a chance to shower before you have to go to an important event...ya know?) Or you forget your lip gloss and ask a friend to borrow some and then frantically try to ingrain the name of the stuff into your already overstuffed brain so you can rush to your nearest drug store and purchase it in the hopes that you may possibly one day look half as stunning as the original owner.  This is making me sound like I have some major self-image issues.  I wouldn't say that...I would however say that I have earned each and every gray hair I possess, that I have stayed up countless nights to acquire the bags and purple smudges under my eyes and quite frankly I don't look like the 21 year old version of myself any longer.  I'm proud of my hips, my age and everything I've been through to earn every iota of motherhood I possess. So let me rephrase, the lip gloss you borrowed from your much younger, single, child-less friend who looks like she probably slept 12 hours last night alone...not 12 hours total in the last four nights. 

I wish I had some infinite wisdom to share with you here about what makeup you can whip onto your face to make you look ten years younger... No. Scratch THAT. To make you look like you just got a full night of sleep.  Can you imagine if you could bottle that stuff up?!?! Genius idea. Lets think on that one, but for now my wisdom is this.  It can be a challenge to embrace who you are and to enjoy the coming of age.  I personally have always been excited to get older. Maybe it's because I know I won't be making those same dumb-a@$ mistakes I made in my late teens, early twenties, late twenties...oh well, if we're being honest, the mistakes I'm still making.  It is fun, fun, fun to get dressed up and made up and feel like a million bucks for a while and it's fun to get your makeup just right and find something that makes you feel like you just discovered a genie in a bottle for a little while.  It's fun to be a girl and to flaunt the good stuff if you feel like flaunting! However, makeup is not who it says it really is.  Throughout my makeup wearing days I have learned that it is not the makeup, but the person inside that smiles brighter then anybody else, that stands tall, that respects the changes her body has made and is proud to just be that makes you feel like a million bucks.  That is my infinite wisdom on makeup. It lies. 

I own drawers and drawers full of the stuff. It's unreal! I could probably have a healthy savings right now if I stopped walking into the drug store!!! That place is like my kryptonite. I only enter on an emergency basis anymore and even still I end up with stuff I never, ever in a million years needed. Yet, the marketing was awesome, the packaging was too cool to walk away from and I really just "needed" it.  There must be a name for this drug-store obsession I have and to make matters worse, you can simply shop for it all online now! Even greater selections at your beck and call. Ouch. The "lies" work when it comes to sucking me in and making me want to believe.  I honestly do feel refreshed and awake when I apply mascara and some superhero bag reducing, purple smudge erasing, magical potion to my under-eye area.  There is nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned, it is a matter of opinion and what makes us feel confident. Maybe the marketing helped guide us there but in reality we decide if we like it and will use it again or if it ends up in the depths of the drawer we rarely open to get a little makeup assistance. 

Funny story: The other day I was out sunbathing on my lawn.  I live in a "relatively" private area and didn't fear that anyone would see anything they shouldn't because I had a bathing suit on...no big deal right? Then a delivery truck started to pull up my driveway and I booked it to the back of the house in hopes that I could outrun his speed up my hill and throw on a t-shirt before getting so busted.  I was clearly unsuccessful as he cracked a joke saying something about it being "pretty private up here huh?" HA!! BUSTED. Mortified.  Re-telling this story to my own mother she asks, "why is it that people can go to a beach full of strangers in a swimsuit but in their own back yard they freak out and run away like fools?" (this may not be her exact wording, but it's how I interpreted it anyway.) So true. Why not own up to the fact that I was taking advantage of little beans nap and catching a few rays (with sunscreen....retract the claws!) and this guy was actually on my territory and time? Same reason I feel awake and confident when I have on a little makeup.  It's hiding the not so pleasant bits and enhancing the ones I like to make it through a day.  If that's what it takes, I say go for it within reason and feel like a million bucks. You really do only live once.

If only I could remember the name of that lip gloss....must be in there with my forgotten passwords somewhere!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

I forget passwords.  It's what I do.  I think I'm being all mysterious and creative and make different passwords all the time...yeah, really good idea when your memory bank equals that of the fly buzzing around your head repeatedly because it forgot it's done it 60 times in the last two minutes.  In the words of Charlie Brown, "Good Grief." You would think that by this time in my life I would have some sort of system figured out in remembering such things.  I even once worked for a giant company that shall remain nameless but rhymes with DAY-OF-Hell....resetting passwords for idiots who couldn't remember such a simple thing.  Yeah. Pointing at self...idiot.  

I was always told, never write your passwords down, someone could steal them.  I'm sure little bean would find them quite tasty but I sincerely doubt anyone is going to come looking for my scribbled passwords on my pathetic excuse for a desk (aka, piles of papers that I move from one side to the other and clear an itty bitty living space for my computer from time to time).  So...I attempted to write them down.  I lost the first attempt, so I wrote another.  Then I lost that one to, so there are multiple copies of these lovely passwords just kicking around, but don't worry - by now, I've had to reset each and every one because I can't remember what they are.

Why don't I make them all the same you ask? Well, that is a wonderful question.  Lets face it, every single company looking for you to make a password has a different set of rules.  This one won't take any characters, that one is case sensitive and that one is not, this one wants you to have capitals, numbers, letters, and characters but only the characters %$~@& and nothing else.  That to me looks like a disguised cuss word and you can bet your bottom dollar that is EXACTLY what I am doing when I go to log into your stupid account and can't remember my ridiculous password and need to spend an extra 15 minutes figuring it out! UGH!!!! 

I blame who for this? The hackers? They are freakin' geniuses! I imagine them sitting in some dark basement surrounded by crazy amounts of machinery that could probably stop another country in its tracks, but they are using it to hack my measly bank account for the five bucks sitting in there.  Awesome.  Good for you.  I hope your day is complete because you read my emails from my idiot ex-boyfriend who thinks that I should be driven off a cliff and you are five dollars richer then when your day began.  Of course, I imagine hackers stumble upon some amazing material...to vast for my imagination to drum up, but it must be fulfilling.  Do these people even need real jobs??? I doubt it!!!  Genius.  

Do I blame the companies who are trying to protect me from the hackers? Can't really do that now can I? They are trying to make it so my five bucks remains in place and I don't have to share the idiocy of the man I used to date and rarely lay claim to (although...he is little beans dad, so maybe one day I'll have to own up. That's an entirely new blog).  They are trying to make my life better.

It must come down to my utter lack of organization.  My brain is full of filing cabinets.  If only I could add a file-o-fax so my brain could just flip to the little insert for each account and shout "BINGO, YAHTZEE, DING DING DING!!!! WE HAVE A WINNER HERE!!!" I guess I'll have to settle for prying soggy post-its with scribbled text from little beans hands so that I can try to guess what the mangled password may be.  One day I'll have it figured out, but for now...mommy brain 0, passwords = to many to count. 

What was that Parrots Name?

My Mommy Hung the Moon...and then I threw applesauce at it.

I read that book just about every night, not the applesauce part mind you. "My mommy hung the moon. She tied it with string. My mommies good at everything." Yeah, well sorry Jamie Lee Curtis, but you live in a delusional world.  I can barely get the kid to drink milk (kids are supposed to like milk, aren't they???) and when the moon comes up? It's lights out time kiddo!!!! Sorry, don't get too attached. 

Here's the thing, I am a single-ish mama as far as being a non-married, non-traditional mother is concerned. I have an amazing support system and someone I could spend every waking minute with, but that being said, day in and day out...I am the mom.  

Obviously the mother clan knows what it means to have had a baby. Exhaustion. Fat where it wasn't before. Exhaustion. Dark circles under your eyes. Exhaustion. Flabby arms, aka bingo wings...need I say more? Oh yeah, and lets not forget: Exhaustion.  To top off the exhaustion, lets add some throw-up, boogers, blood, snarly hair, crusted on food and then lets bring it right back home to EXHAUSTION.  It's like nothing I have ever felt before in my entire life.  I've pulled all-nighters, both for fun and for not so fun reasons.  I've driven hours on end and sat through countless boring and ridiculous meetings.  Nothing a little caffeine and exercise couldn't fix.  This folks, is sheer and irreparable exhaustion. 

Yep, you read that right. I used to exercise.  Now, I chase little legs, shoo little feet from standing on furniture, dry tears, and clean up spills.  Not the typical form of exercise, but who's counting.  So, here I figure I will insert some dieting.  I figure, hell (ahem, I mean heck...shoot, dang, you know the PG terms), I did it once I can do it again! So here comes the gluten-free attempt.  Who am I trying to kid?!?!?! That is ridiculous.  First of all, every kid snack basically known to man has gluten in it. Goldfish? Yes please.  With my kid, it's like I'm the parrot in Aladdin, and I'm getting crackers shoved in my face even though my mouth is clamped tight and I am shaking my head "no" vigorously...What was that parrots name again? Doesn't matter.  Basically, the kid foiled most of my GF plans!!! Easier to lay blame there then on the fact that I essentially have zero will power and cannot fathom a day without my blessed pasta, bread, and crackers.  But here I sit trying.  I will try to update you on this attempt, but don't think that I'm going to offer you tips and recipes....I don't even know what day it is so, I can't be that girl for you. 

I don't do coffee, so the exhaustion tends to just settle in my bones and is the driving force behind every mistake I make on a daily basis.  Yesterday, I walked into the grocery store, filled my cart, went to the register and yep, you guessed it...NO WALLET!!! Of all things. So little bean and I parked our cart, lost a shoe, stopped to re-attach said shoe, which led to a minor meltdown, walked to the car, found said wallet, retrieved our parked cart and proceeded to check out with red cheeks and the speed of a gazelle bagging groceries.  Get me the *&^%$#* out of here!!!! Yikes. 

So, this is the story of me.  The story of forgetting who the parrot is because really...my brain just can't fathom trying to remember such a thing.  This is the story of hating coffee but essentially needing an IV of the stuff... Of remembering my own sippy cups and training bras, but reveling in the world of doing it all over again from an entirely different perspective.  Here we go...time to find some string to re-attach the moon.  It's crooked.