Mother Of The Week Award

Last night we tried a modified cry-it-out scenario that went badly. We let Peanuty Goodness cry for no more than 10 minutes at a streetch and one of us would go in his room to soothe him. If I went in to soothe him he would cry a little harder and get upset that I wasn't picking him up. If The Big O went in, his cries went into octaves that dogs can't hear and he pitched a bigger fit than ever. (I guess the mommy wins that popularity contest.)

It was my turn to go in and I thought I'd rub his tummy and face, tell him I love him and leave again. But, nooooooo. From the second I walked in his room, something was different. Maybe it was the smell.

When I touched him, my first thought was that I put my hand in egg whites but that couldn't be right. No, it wasn't spit up either. Spit up is small, mostly in a contained area and mildly annoying. This was throw up. It went from his head to his knees, front and back. It was out his nose and up the back of his head in his hair. It covered a foot radius around his little body.

I'll collect my award later after his first therapy session for abandonment issues, thankyouverymuch.

A cautionary tale

I recently posted this on a parenting board I belong to and think it's reflective of my cake needs at any given time. Yes, I have cake needs. Doesn't everyone?

If you're craving cake and decide to make one, make sure you have all the ingredients you need first. If you know you're out of milk, DO NOT use the recipe that has no milk in it. Wait until you can get milk as this recipe sucks balls. Your cake will have the texture (but none of the fun) of a brownie.

What? You'd like frosting? Buttercream? No problem. Wait, no milk. Ah-ha! You have soy milk! Same thing, right? NO, NOT EVEN CLOSE. Put it down and back away. This will give your frosting a weird sort of lemon-y flavor that while not unpleasant (it is buttercream after all) is just odd.

And even if your husband tells you he's an architect, DO NOT let him frost the cake. Your kitchen table will look like a Jackson Pollack canvas when he's done.

All in all, your brownie textured cake with soy milk buttercream frosting sucks and your cake craving is so now out of control that you're contemplating walking 6 blocks to the supermarket in a foot of snow, uphill the way back and your kitchen needs clean-up from the HAZMAT team.

Not that I did this. I'm just sayin'.

Is there an echo in here?

The Tyrant will be two years old next month and is tons o' fun lately. He interacts with us more, has opinions and loves to turn the light switches on and off. It resembles a disco up in this mother sometimes but that's okay, that's how we roll. Or used to roll. Or could roll if we didn't have children and serious sleep deprivation.

Unfortunately, with the increased interaction comes increased verbal diarrhea. This child will repeat anything. ANYTHING. Including me exclaiming how cold it is in the kitchen one morning, "FUCK ME!" There was no getting around it either, The Big O was right behind him so I couldn't even pretend like it didn't happen. Let me tell you about the stink eye I got for that one. Alex Trebeck might not have given it to him due to pronunciation but it came across well enough. The Tyrant especially likes to see my reaction so when I do slip up and say something that little pitchers with big ears (what does that mean anyway? Little pitchers, big ears...never understood that one) shouldn't hear, I try not to give a reaction should it be repeated and giggled over.

Like today for example. I was unthrilled and let it be known with a long, drawn-out, "Shhhhhhhhhhhhh-IT". Don't you know, second for second, letter for letter, it was repeated with the exact amount of feeling. If I wasn't so sure that someone was going to take my kid away, I'd be proud.

My mother likes to say that I swear in body parts. I prefer the classics and use them with frequency and feeling. My personal favorite is an action word but could be construed as a noun, I suppose and in polite company is defined as one who performs fellatio. That's if you you hang out with people who say "fellatio" to each other. And if that's the case, who the hell are you hanging out with?!

I'm waiting for that bomb to drop and will forever be banned from speaking to, in front of, around, near or in the general vicinity of my kid if The Big O ever hears that. So for now I'll have to stick with fuck.

No one prepared me for this

This is a warning: This post is about poop. If this disturbs you, you probably shouldn't be reading my blog anyway.

The Tyrant pooped in the tub tonight. For the first time. Ever. No, really. I was getting Peanuty Goodness to sleep when The Big O tells me that there is a particularly stinky mess floating (floating!? Who knew it floated?) in the bath. My first thought was, "Thank God I threw out those squirty bath tub toys." I shudder just thinking about that possibility.

So I did what any normal person would do. I sent a text to my BFF, who may or may not have had this problem before, asking what should I do. I didn't want to reach in the water and pull out the stopper. What if it went down the drain? Or worse, what if it didn't? Honestly though, I really didn't want to stick my hand in that water. I love my children, I really do but there are limits. The water just plain grossed me out. And I had a home water birth with Peanuty Goodness. The irony, right?

Anyhoo, I stood there analyzing the situation hoping the answer would come to me while I tried to figure out what I had fed him from the remnants. I had a very "look but don't touch" attitude. By the way, blueberries and edamame will retain their shape amazingly well if your child is like mine and swallows them whole like a baby dinosaur.

In the end (get it? in the end....funny shit. Oh, there I go again!), I went with the path of least resistance. That's right, I turned the shower head on pulse/ massage and beat the hell out of that shit right down the drain. Unfortunately, I had to throw out my shower puff. Who knew it splattered as well as floated?

Also, I'd like to give a big HELL YEAH! to the makers of Clorox Clean Up Wipes. Not the most environmentally friendly, but fantastic nonetheless.

It runs in the family

My dad is a typical dad, I guess. He fought in Vietnam, is a little stand off-ish and likes to tell me his opinion on everything in my life, in rather large words. He's got a hell of a vocabulary. He's put on a bit of weight "on the back nine", as I like to call his senior years but it doesn't seem to bother him overly much. Retired from a car factory, he now runs his very own sawmill in the itsy-bitsy-teeny-tiny wide spot in the road he calls home; middle (of nowhere) Tennessee.

He likes to tell me about the weather at his house in Tennessee, the weather at my old house in Florida and the weather at my grandfather's house in Pennsylvania. Last week he told me that he would be a naturist except his friends Roy and Crystal lives too close and might see him. Sorry Internet, I can't be the only one with that image in my head. His computer is his closest friend besides his wife and he has rebuilt a new one every few years.

I think I look exactly like my dad. My mom thinks I look like my dad too, but she loves me anyway and has gotten over it. Dad thinks The Tyrant looks like me too, which is funny to everyone else. I got one of those 4D scans when I was about 6 months pregnant with The Tyrant and you can clearly tell that I was the carrier for the clone. This child was then and is now, without a doubt, a smaller version of my husband. Eyes, mouth, cheeks, chin and especially (Thank God!) the nose. At almost 2 years old, he has straight blond hair like The Big O did at that age, although a little darker, but still; it's not the curly brown that I have. My genes saw his and caved in defeat. His temperament is that same too. Low key, laid back and almost calm for a two year old. See? Totally not my kid! My only hope is that the math aptitude comes from his father too.

Life gets in the way

When I first decided to start a blog, I had so much I wanted to write about. I had an idea for a funny post, an idea for a witty post, an idea for a thought-provoking and poignant post. I had ideas coming out my ass and I was going to be the Barbara Walters/ Connie Chung/ Oprah Winfrey of the internet blogospere; benevolent and contemplative yet racially diverse too. (Stop laughing, it could happen.) Now I find myself wanting to write but the small people are very demanding of my time. It's all, "Pay attention to me, I'm hungry, change my diaper." Or it would be if they could string together words.

Don't they see that I have a following I must attend to? That the internet needs me to surf it or it'll fade away into the nothingness that Al Gore created it from? That my friends and family would worry themselves into a tizzy if I didn't Tweet my every last narcissistic thought? (I actually don't have a Twitter account, but you get the idea.)

Truth be told, laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, nursing, stacking blocks, reading books and marveling at the incredibly good fortune to have such an amazing family take up most of my day. And if I have a few minutes to shower, that's good too.

And the hysteria ensues...

For my first post, I'd like to introduce you to my family. I'm married with two boys, The Tyrant and Peanuty Goodness. They are by far the coolest people I know and they have the sunniest personalities. My husband, The Big O, is also immensely cool, however sometimes not so sunny. He gets extra points for making me laugh though.

My mother lives in Florida and carries a hand gun. My father lives in Tennessee and carries several hand guns. My sister lives in New York and should not be allowed near anyone who might be thinking about hand guns.

In a nut shell, they're insane but they're mine and I love them. Most of the time. In a snarky, am-I-really-related-to-you kind of way.