Tag: motherhood

Car Bomb

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When we were kids, we had good family friends that we went to California with every summer. Their four kids to our two plus their parents and my mom made for one packed suburban. After a week of driving to and from the beach to the rental house, our friend’s dad would declare that the SUV smelled like “there were too many butts dragging across the seats”. This became a signature scent in our family and anytime something smelled wrong, it was always reminiscent of too many butts.

Last night I confessed, while laughing hysterically, that I had dropped an entire cheese stick between my seat and the console of my car. I had been trying to open it for the kiddo and it slipped right out of the plastic. Now, for anyone who knows me, any friends or roommates, they will testify that I am neat. Annoyingly neat. ridiculously clean. My worst fear is that someone-will-think-my-house-smells-funny kind of clean. So the fact that I’m knowingly driving around with a cheese stick under my seat is so appalling, it’s funny.

Peter, not believing me, trucked out to the garage with a fork in hand to retrieve said snack. When asked why I hadn’t done something about it, I said that I had A. forgotten about it having become accustomed to the smell that ridding around with a toddler who snacks in the car brings and B. I’m having my car detailed this weekend and I was going to have them get it out. disgusted, Peter forged on moving the driver seat forwards and backwards, continually stabbing at the missing dairy product. I, a little buzzed after a glass (or 2) of wine am giggling in the passenger seat. The role reversal of the situation was hilarious. It’s also a good 116 degrees in our garage so it may have been a heat induced state, I’m not sure.

Five minutes later, Peter grabbed the hardened stick off the fork, threw it away and declared me disgusting. All while scretly finding it hysterical because I know he’s accidentally dropped an entire spit cup in his truck. I’ll take a wayward cheese stick over that any day.

Back To School…

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Well, I guess technicall it’s just “to school” at our house. Ms.Baylor started her first day of preschool today!

A few weeks ago we found out that the cost of our favorite Little Gym class was going up – like way up. And because my little lady is such a social butterfly, we decided to look at a few half days of preschool. I started asking around, looking around and making calls to the few schools near our home that have an academic cirriculum for 2 year olds. We’re lucky that we had several choices and all have a Christian base. The unlucky part is that apparently every other two year olds mom knew that they were going to be ready for preschool months ago and had registered them and taken up all the available spots. We’re talking registration fees to get on a double digit wait list! I always thought the story line in movies where there is a year long wait list for preschool was a joke – apparently the only joke was on me.

Thankfully we did find a school that had openings and on top of that, they were amazing! I felt comfortable from the moment we walked in an Baylor was in love with the classroom and play ground. We met her teachers last week and when it was time to leave, she cried and screamed “STAY!!!”. Her teacher thought she was upset because Baylor thought I was leaving – I had to explain that Bay would love it if I would go so she could stay.

This morning after lots of pictures, Bay scrambled to her new class room and dove into the toys. I squatted down next to her and said that Daddy and I were going to leave she turned and said “hug! kiss! bye bye!”. She all but walked us to the door.

When I picked her up, the class was lying on their tummies singing a song about fish swimming. Bay looked up, waved and then continued on with the song. Her report card said she was “happy”, “ate all her snack” (big shock since it was mini pancakes!) and “had a great first day!”. B handed me her report card, said good bye and we headed out the door. No tears, no issues on either end. Can’t ask for more.

She told me in the car that she got to show her family pictures to her class mates, that they painted piggies and played on the swings. She also told me a girl named Emma got her ears pierced and that it hurt. She repeated her story to both sets of grandparents and to daddy too. I am currently listening to her tell Minnie Mouse the same story – it’s nap time so she and Minnie are having some pillow talk.

Her one disappointment of the day was that she didn’t need to take a backpack with her to school. This, however, did not stop me from getting her a ridiculously cute one that was waiting in the car for her….

 

Ready to take on preschool!

A Little Thank You

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I just wanted to say thank you to all the comments on Friday’s blog (which, oddly wasn’t named). It makes me feel validated in knowing I, like many of the readers, were and are in the same boat when it comes to being a parent. I will be sure to do more posts like this and in the mean time, check out the Tales from the Crib archive. There are some posts about the early days with Ms.B and I have to say, they are quite amusing. Some of my favorites include The Sleep Terrorist and A Watched Phone Never Boils. Enjoy and hang in there!

Iced Tea Parties

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In our ongoing quest to stay cool and have some fun outside the house, Baylor and I have tea parties. She gets to take a bottle of water and pour it into her tea pot. Then she gets to pour the “tea” into the tea cups and serve Tome, Bear, Barbie, Mommy and herself. The best part is that she spills the majority of the “tea” all over herself thus keeping cool while having some fun. And she gets some water without me having to add juice to make it enticing. Win. Win. And one more win.

Sadly our host was drenched and therefore stripped down to a diaper by the time I grabbed the camera.

Tome likes Silly Glasses when he imbibes

Bay has to help Bear – without thumbs, tea cups are impossible to hold

Fine Family Fun

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This past weekend was a “home project” weekend. I always have a list of things that need to be fixed, changed or cleaned. Some are big and some are small and this weekend we tackled them all. But that’s another post…

Saturday afternoon after a collective family nap (not all in the same room, but it was definitely the Napping House around here), we headed out to the Biltmore  for some shopping and dinner. We hit the Mac store to get a new charger (there is so a housekeeper from Sedona Rouge Resort making a killing selling “found” phone chargers) and an arm band for the Iphone for running. Then we went to True Food Kitchen for dinner. It’s one of our favorite places; very relaxed, good and healthy food and most importantly, kid friendly.

We have finally entered the phase where we can dine out with our munchkin and there is a high probability that it will be an enjoyable experience. One that is marked with both of us getting to finish our meal, Baylor actually eating something and no one has to take her for a walk at any point. Now, she’s still 2 so there are several seat changes, standing on said seat and lots of urging her to sit on the seat and eat her dinner. But the tantrums are few and far between and Peter and I are able to have a conversation that lasts longer than 30 seconds and the dinner lasts from appetizers to dessert. It has been a long time since we’ve had this kind of dinner out – and an even longer (if ever) time since Ms.B has graced us with her presence. It was a beautiful Saturday evening as a family topped off with some additional window shopping along the mister lined side walks – and Baylor and I showing Peter how we break it down in the car to our favorite song.

PS – if you ever see a white SUV with a lady driving doing some funky dance moves while either looking in the back seat or rear view mirror, just assume A. it’s me B. my kid thinks I’m hilarious and C. we’re having a great time.

Girls (mini) Weekend

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This past weekend, I joined my friend Kristin and two of her friend (who I would now like to think of as our friends!) for a little mini weekend in Sedona.

Kristin found a great deal on TravelZoo.com back in January. It was for two people, two massages and breakfast for a ridiculously good rate. Kristin, Jen , Cheryl and myself headed out first thing Saturday morning. We arrived at the beautiful Sedona Rouge resort with plenty of time before our spa appointments to sneak in our Skinny Girl Margaritas and lay by the pool. We enjoyed the 90 degrees, sun, chilly pool and ice-cold drinks while catching up and chit chatting. It was lovely to just have the time to relax.

We gathered up our cocktails and gear and headed over to the spa for massages. An hour later, we all met up in the whirl pool to discuss everyone’s treatment and laugh about the conversations we had. My masseuse was a total hippie and very nice so we chatted the entire time. Cheryl fell asleep to the point where the masseuse had to wake her up and Kristin was rubbed down by every part of the masseuse’s arm and part of her hair as well. The consensus? Great massages and that we had to find out where they get their oils from – which when we finally found the store that supplies the oils to the spa, they couldn’t give us a straight answer on which brand they sold and which scents were most popular. But we did find the fudge store and got milkshakes for the drive home so our excursion goes down in the win column.

We capped off the day with Blood Orange Margaritas at a new restaurant called Elote. It’s kind of modern mexican food and was quite enjoyable. The remainder of the evening was spent answering salacious questions from a bachelorette party game left over from Kristin’s wedding. Despite the content, it felt very much like a teenage sleep over, complete with animal crackers and M&M’s – but with wine!

The thing that struck me more than once was that this group of ladies was the ideal group to travel with. First off, everyone brought snacks, wine AND an opener. All the ladies were easy-going, up for whatever and had  no qualms about when and what we ate. The easy going-ness of the group made it so relaxing and fun.

The icing on the cake of the trip was the drive home. We were having a deep discussion about the chicks from Teen Mom and drew a blank on the name of Jayce’s mom. When Kristin looked it up we all heaved a collective “JANELLE!!”. This was followed by “Samsonite! I was way off” which opened up a stream of Dumb and Dumber quotes despite the fact that no one had mentioned the movie. Pure genius.

Thanks to Kristin for being our cruise director and to Jen and Cheryl for making the weekend so fun!

Feathered Accessories

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Feather hair extensions, clips, headbands and pins are all the rage these days. Just typing “feathers” int a search on Etsy.com brings up dozens of sites selling feathered accessories.

And because these little beauties are popular, they aren’t cheap. I goofed around online until I found some close up shots of the clips and decided I could copy them. Thankfully for me, my hubby Peter ties flies for fishing. This means there are  plethora of feathers in his desk of every length, origin and color.

I tried a prototype that didn’t hold up very well. So I added some ribbon and my new clip survived several outings while on vacation. Here’s a good picture:

Just a hint of feather under my left ear. It’s just enough to be hip, but appropriate for a mom who’s approaching 30! I did make a little clip for Baylor, but she wasn’t a fan. And my mom kept thinking there was something stuck in my hair. I guess some trends aren’t for everyone.  But I’m thinking with a few gin and tonics, she’ll be into it. My mom that is, Baylor’s more of a M&M kind of gal.

I Believe

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I believe in miracles. I believe in signs. I believe in the warm and fuzzies and gut feelings. I believe that God gives us little whispers, hints and reminders that we are loved and that someone is listening.

This week Baylor moved up to the “big pool” at swim lessons. It was bitter-sweet for me because it meant that I no longer had to get into the super chlorinated pool only to get doused several unwanted times. But it also meant that I didn’t have to get into the pool with her for swim lessons anymore. After watching her lesson, I saw how great she did with her instructor because she was getting spread her wings and it was amazing to watch. I was so happy, so proud… and so comfortable in the cool air conditioned room.

I realized on the way home that our second call after Peter to tell him how great she did, would have been to Mame. Mamie always loved watching and hearing about Bay’s lessons. She bought her goggles, a kick board and her first swim suit – followed by many other swim suites. She was always so excited to hear how she did and loved watching her “kick, kick, kick and float, float, float”. When she was able to come to lessons, Baylor made a point to climb out, run to the sidelines and give Mamie a kiss. Even though it was not what she was supposed to be doing, even her teacher couldn’t get mad because it was so cute.  I was sure to note that night during prayers with Baylor, how proud Mamie would have been of her.

Saturday morning I was greeted by a sweet, smiling two-year old shouting “AWAKE!! MOMMY!! AWAKE!!”. I picked Bay up and took her to the changing table where she asked me for her “Mamie angel”.  I handed her the wooden figuring that Mame had given her on her first birthday. She kissed it, and then looked at me and said “I saw you”. I stopped mid diaper change. She said it again and this time smiled at me. Baylor has never said that before – she usually says “see you” or “momma, see”, never a full sentence and never in the past tense.

My only conclusion is that it was a little sign from Mame that she’s watching. That she sees how amazing Baylor is and that she’s proud. I tried hard to hold in tears and said a little prayer of thanks for knowing that she’s still here and that she still sees how much she is loved and missed.