Ramblings

Not a lot has been happening around here. Except that Baby Girl had her birthday - she's one! The Husband had gone back to his crazy work schedule, which means I'm alone with the kids for about 12 hours a day. We are focusing on surviving with our sanity, and trying to have a little fun while doing so, and that is taking up pretty much all of our time. Now on to the ramblings...

I witnessed my first facebook catfight last night. Oh, it was ugly. It was between two of my "friends," one of whom is actually a good friend. The other participant, who was the instigator, is more of a friend of a friend. Without going into details, the friend of a friend, whom I now call The Bully, jumped down the throat of my good friend for an innocent comment. The Bully was obviously just waiting for someone to make a comment on her status, and my poor friend was the first to take the bait. It was painful to watch it unfold, and just so unnecessary. Some people need to get a little perspective on things. Needless to say, I don't think these two are friends anymore.

I've gotten into couponing. Not just a coupon here, a coupon there like I used to, but REAL couponing! There's a blog I recently stumbled upon, My St. Louis Mommy, and she sums up all the coupon deals, and tells you how to match them up with store sales and store coupons. It's all the benefit without all the work, I love it! She gives a weekly update for Target (with links to coupons), which is where a lot of my money goes, so it's really saved us some cash. However, there is a dark cloud in my bright sky. My grocery store will no longer take internet coupons. This really stinks, because almost all the coupons SLM shares are from the internet. I had all my grocery coupons printed out, my list made, I shopped, checked out, bagged the items, and only then was I told that my coupons were not acceptable at the store. What?! Turns out they just had a rash of people forging coupons and could no longer accept anything but coupons from the paper. They wouldn't even take internet coupons from me, and the grocery store is my family's business. Frustration! Thanks, general public, for breaking the rules for your own gain and ruining it for the rest of us.

On a brighter note, I have booked a maid service to come deep clean my house! Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy!!! I've always wanted to do this, but have always been too cheap to go through with it. However, I'm throwing a fancy baby shower for one of my good friends in a few weeks, and Little Man has a school program the day before, which means I will be at the school half the day and he will come home early. Not good when I'm making/decorating a cake and hosting. I mean, the cleaning is the hardest part of hosting an event at your house. So I found a locally-owned, independent business, which uses all natural, chemical-free products, and who gave me the best price! I'm in heaven, I can't wait for them to come!

Well, I'm out of ramblings for now. :)

Why I'm always cleaning and yet it's always a mess.

First off, let's state the obvious:

1 husband, 2 small children, 2 dogs - enough said.

Now for the rest:

I've just finished scrubbing the kitchen spotless and Little Man wants a snack. He requests yogurt. Ok. Yogurt dispensed. Yogurt spilled on counter. Yogurt mistaken for finger paint.

I wash walls. With the above mentioned beings living in this house, it has to be done on occasion. Here is one reason why: Little Man was caught with his hands in his dirty, just-worked-in-the-yard shoes, "walking" them up the wall.

That's all I have for now, these incidences both happened yesterday, but I'm sure I'll have more very soon.

A lot can happen in seven years....

Seven years ago,

Me= somewhat newly single, fresh out of grad school, a few months into my first roommate-less apartment, a few months into my first real job. Life was great, I felt empowered, successful, basically on top of the world. I had been dating here and there, and truly, I was a bit disappointed in the pickings. I had actually just decided not to date for awhile, as it just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I remember that I was going to visit my one of my old college roommates, she lived about three hours away. She and her boyfriend were having a party and had invited me to stay, so I went. I was supposed to come home early, because my sister was having her second annual pumpkin carving party, and, honestly, I was having such a good time at my friend's house that I almost stayed for one more day. But in the back of my mind I remembered that my sister said that one of my brother-in-law's friends was planning on going to the pumpkin party. I kind of liked him. We hadn't seen each other in several months, but the few times we met had made an impression. At the time, he was also somewhat newly single, we were both several months out of long-term, very serious (as in making plans to take the plunge) relationships, and I just felt it would be a good idea to go and see what happened.

So I went.

The rest is history. The brother-in-law's friend asked me out, and a few days later we had our first date, which was my last first date. Today is the anniversary of our first date, seven years ago.

Happy Dativersary, sweetie!

Domestic bliss... Where?!?!

There's no domestic bliss here today....I'm actually writing this tongue-in-cheek, but how do you convey that with the written word?

Anyway, today a few laughable things happened. I washed a load of the kids' clothes last night, and today, when I went to pull them out of the dryer, I was surprised to find Baby Girl's white tights in the load. I had set them aside to hand wash, or wash separately, whichever I felt more like doing at the time, but I guess they were accidentally mixed in with the rest of the clothes. It wouldn't have been a big deal except that I also had bibs in the wash. You know, bibs with Velcro. The bib Velcro and Baby Girl's thin tights didn't like each other too much. The tights looked like they had been mauled and had to be thrown away. Who knew? There's probably many little things about raising a Baby Girl that I've yet to learn.

Also today, I was mixing the fondant for Baby Girl's birthday cake, her party is this Saturday. This is the cake I've been practicing for, you know the whole reason I learned how to use fondant in the first place. Every cake so far has been in preparation for this cake. Ok, so I'm sounding a bit dramatic, but this is what I'm thinking to myself. So, I'm almost halfway through the process, and suddenly my sifter breaks. Completely breaks, I can't even really knock the sugar through by hitting the side of the sifter with my hand. So I have to make the fondant without sifted sugar. Inside, my OCD is screaming at me, "What if it's messed up? What if it's lumpy? It's supposed to be sifted!!!" I had to have a talk with myself, "Self, it's ok. It's just sugar, and it's just a cake. Seriously, calm down!" It worked, I have to say I've been doing pretty well with the OCD these past few years. (Thank goodness for that, says The Husband!)

In addition to today, a few other mishaps happened earlier this week. A few days ago, I was digging around in my trunk, and suddenly came upon a mysterious plastic grocery bag. "Uh oh," I thought, "what food did I leave in my trunk, and how bad is it going to smell?" Fortunately it wasn't food, but unfortunately it was even worse. Diapers. Cloth diapers to be exact. They were probably left in my trunk for about ten days or so. That's ten days too many, my friends. So I washed an "emergency load" of diapers and stripped the diapers, which means you do an extra, extra thorough wash with a different kind of soap. You only strip your diapers about once a month or so. (At least that's what I do.) So now I've just stripped my diapers. A day or two goes by and I wash another load of diapers. When I pull them out of the dryer I am greeted with a surprise (yes, another one!). This time it's a dryer sheet. Oh no!!! Why is that so bad, you ask? Well, fabric softener, including dryer sheets, leave a residue on the diapers, which keeps the diapers from absorbing liquid, which is what diapers are meant to do. So my diapers now leak. Great. How do you fix this, you ask? Strip your diapers, which I just did two days ago. Aarrrggg!

Somehow, I find all these mishaps to be a bit funny, which is so out of character for me. Having children has taught me a lot, and changed me for the better (I think, oh I hope!). Before kids, I probably would have freaked out at all of these incidents. Now, it's easy to just shrug it off and laugh.

Life is good!

No Jinx!

Today I gave away much of our baby gear. A spare high chair, bouncy seat, exersaucer, baby bjorn, plus some odds and ends are gone.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

No, that's not true, I feel GREAT about it! I mean, with four people and two dogs we have lots of space for unused baby gear in our just over 1700 sq ft house. Yeah, right. I mean, everything was stored away so nicely, the high chair was kept at my mom's house and the exersaucer lived in the whirlpool tub in my master bath.

(I know I'm not the only one who uses the big whirlpool tub for storage, tell me I'm not)

Plus, the gear went to someone who could use it, and that makes me happy.

Nevertheless, it was a bit hard to let it go. I kept thinking, "what if we want another baby," or, "what if we don't plan to have another baby, but one comes along anyway?" (The more likely scenario.)

Oh well, if that happens, it happens. Now my house is a bit less crowded, I have my tub back, and I was able to help someone in the process.

I just hope I didn't jinx myself.

Well, if I did, shopping for baby things is always fun!

Practice makes progress - and thank goodness for that!

Baby Girls practice birthday cake, I only hope the real thing turns out as well!

This and That About the Kids

The kids have been sleeping in the same room lately. Baby Girl goes to bed earlier than Little Man, so when she first goes to sleep it's in the pack n' play in our room. Then when The Husband and I go to bed we move her upstairs to the crib. This gives Little Man a chance to have his bedtime routine with songs and books, and lets him have time to fall asleep without worrying about waking up his sister. We've been doing this for awhile now, and it's going ok, but not great. Baby Girl still wakes up in the night on occasion, as babies often do, and she usually wakes up Little Man in the process. Two kids awake and crying in the middle of the night is NOT fun. We are persevering, however, it is really important for us to get Baby Girl OUT OF OUR ROOM! Can you tell how strongly we feel about that? So last night, as I was giving Little Man his last hugs and kisses before he went to sleep, I said something about bringing Baby Sister (that's what Little Man call her, more often than he uses her real name) up in a little while, and he responded, "Mommy, don't bring Baby Sister up here. She's gonna get me all waked up."

So cute. :)


The kids are being really sweet to each other right now. Oh, how I'm enjoying it! This is an exchange that I overheard a few days ago, when Baby Girl was fussing.

Little Man: "It's ok, Baby Sister, I'm right here. I'm not leaving for school again."

Baby Girl continues to fuss, so Little Man says in the sweetest and most comforting tone he can manage, "It's ok Baby Sister, I'm right here."

Such a good, protective big brother.


One weekend morning recently, Little Man and The Husband were on their way to daddy's office. The Husband just had to stop in for a quick minute to pick up some paperwork he accidentally left the day before. It was early in the morning, so I hurriedly got Little Man dressed and ready, and walked him to the front door. As he was walking out I asked, "Can mama have a hug and kiss?" Little Man: "Oh, yeah, " and he gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek. Then he said, "Ok, I give Mama a hug," and proceeded to give me a great big hug. I walked him to the door, then stood on the front porch and waved as he walked to daddy's car. He turned around and said, "Okay, I see you later! I be back soon!"

When did he get to be so grown up?


Today was a milestone day! When I dropped Little Man off at his parent's day out, (he goes twice a week) he walked into the classroom, ran over to the table where the other children were playing, and started to play! Most days he is very clingy to Mama, and fusses a bit when I leave. He also begs for his paci and lovey when I leave. Now lately, his teacher has been great about distracting him so he doesn't need paci and lovey, for which I am so grateful. Today, as I was about to leave, he ran over to me and he whispered, "I want paci and lovey." I just responded, "You don't need paci and lovey, go play!" And off he went, skipping no less! And no fussing, either, when I left!