Mandajuice

Party like it's going out of style

We went through 13 pairs of big-boy underpants today (have I mentioned that underpants is my favorite word in the English language - just say it with me - UNDERPANTS!)  And honestly, could there possibly be anything cuter?

Seriously.

And as cute as he may be, the NOT PEEING IN THE TOILET IS ALREADY GETTING OLD.  Not a single drop made it into the bowl today.  Although!  We did have a small poop breakthrough, during which I caught the redfaced little monkey in the corner of the patio making fists and grunting and was able to bribe him onto the potty with the promise of Mike 'N Ike's - TWO if he pooped.  And he did!

But that was it. 

All day.

Thank god our carpet is already crap.  This is going to be a FUN FUN week for me.  I feel like the world's most annoyingly chirpy (but encouraging!) nag. 

In other news, neither Dave nor myself can remember a weekend during which we had more fun (or for that matter, spent more money).  Friday afternoon we met Jamie and Joe at the park where the kids ran around in the little water-play area for hours while we attempted to chat about something other than them (husbands are always fun to complain about discuss!)  It was only after I returned home that I had my epiphany about the farmer-mom tan.  I look ridiculous.  But in a good way.

Dave and I ate out several times (a day), saw Star Wars (which once you add on babysitting was an 'ouch' of an expense at $50, but totally worth every cent just to see the creepy nerd chick in front of us with the "Sith Lords Kick Ass" t-shirt).  We made brunch for my sibs before Uncle Dan-Dan left for the next leg of his wacky world tour (I have one word about that brunch - KRUSTEAZ - thankyouverymuch) and got some fun video of Audrey ("odd-gy") playing Ukelele ("ku-le-le") while the boy danced (which is really more like hyperactive jumping) around our living room.

Sunday night we had a mini-party with our closest friends.  I've learned now that there is a perfectly inverse relationship between the quantity of alcohol I ingest and the number of photos I take.  So naturally, since Joe's dad, Adeeb, was the bartender, I have no photos to post from the party whatsoever.  I did manage to film a few minutes of video, but I'm not quite nerdly enough to figure out how to make them viewable to the larger public.  I'll have to see Star Wars a few more times to aspire to that level of geekiness.  Don't laugh - it could happen!

Wish me luck for Day #2.  Which will hopefully involve some successful #1's.

Progress Report: Potty Training Day One

Time: 9:57 AM
Pairs of soggy Finding Nemo underpants: 7
Drops of urine to actually make it in to the potty: zero (although a few lucky straglers made it onto Dad's shirt as he was leaving for work).

Mom: already counting down the minutes till nap time.

I don't even LIKE worms.

Perhaps I spoke too soon in my last post.  This job has its rewards, yes, but also it's fair share of challenges.  For four days straight, I've been up with the boy whose been up with the sun - before six AM.  As in 5:33, 5:47, 5:38 and 5:42.  This part? Is not so fun.  And Dave and I have a standing agreement that I don't get to sleep in as long as I'm a stay-at-home-mom because (you're going to love this) I "can" take a nap everyday.  If I want to.  Since, you know, I'm home and all.

This new found lack of sleep is doing wonders for my mood, let me tell you!  Not to mention my patience!  And Alex!  Boy is he loving all these changes to his schedule!  We all know how much the boy LOVES IT when you change around his naptime!  He's not the LEAST bit cranky, not at all!  It's been great, really!

I have plenty to talk about lately, but little screen-time to do anything about the words accumulating in my head.  Coming soon (I promise): 

Darth Vedar?  Why not Darth Leatherpants? Darth Pretty Boy?
Potty-training, aka, How I plan to lose my mind over the next 14 days
Babysitters are great!  Who'd'a'thunk'it?!
Can parents actually talk about ANYTHING other than their children?
How uncannily similar a mommy-tan is to a farmer-tan.

And last but certainly not least, I've been to church, but am I able to find RELIGION?!?

This stay-at-home-mom gig is rough going

What with the carousels,

And the adorable train rides,

And the playing in the sandbox,

And the splashing,

Oh the splashing,

And the dog chasing,

And the lounging about in the shade with my feet in the baby pool,

And the lounging about in the front yard with the neighbors and a frosty margarita.

Life is so hard these days, I hardly have time to write!

Lost

That baby would've been crying hysterically after going so long without nursing.  I'm just saying...

And not that it wouldn't take a plane crash for me to stop watching that show, because it totally would, but they could've given us more to tide us over till fall.  The whole time we were watching tonight, I kept hearing Alex in my head urging them to get on with the plot already with his adorable "Go! People!".

Episode III: Revenge of the Hives. Of Doom.

Normally I take a fantastically magical little white pill to stave off the 90 minutes of itchy torture I otherwise endure every day.  But that pill (Zyrtec) has a two page list of warnings, including but not limited to, "If you are pregnant or may become pregnant" or if there's a glimmer in your husband's eye or if you've even THOUGHT about having another child, you better not let that pill make contact with your gloved hand or your baby will have fourteen arms and no liver.  And since we're not actually trying yet for another kid, but  we're not trying NOT to have another kid, I've stopped taking my allergy pill.

Every day I bitch and piss and moan and SCRATCH AND SCRATCH AND SCRATCH.  And Dave tells me, "Are you SURE you can hack it through a whole pregnancy without your allergy medicine?!?!?" and every day I tell him "YES.  But only if I'm allowed to complain to you EVERY SINGLE DAY that I'm going to die of the itchiness."  I think he's hoping the next pregnancy, whenever it happens (I AM NOT PREGNANT), will be so horrifically itchy that I'll quit bugging him about having a third.  We'll see.

The itchiness?  It's B-A-D.  I would post a photo but my computer hates me and I can't get any of the pictures off my camera.  Soon, though.  You can't endure something this awful without sharing it with the ones you love.

On sweat pants

At an only-semi-alcoholic-margarita party on Friday afternoon, a conversation began about how my mom peers feel like they've completely lost their identities since they quit their jobs to pursue full time parental status.  They all complained over the general assumption that they exist solely to wipe snotty noses and iron their husbands shirts.  I mostly kept quiet (shocking, I know) since I've held this status for barely two months and I happen to absofruckinglutely LOVE staying home and not working.  I've been there, done that and know damn good and well EXACTLY what I'm missing out on.  (Here's a hint: not much.) (Here's another hint: expect to see that "been there, done that" sentence about eleventy thousand more times on this website).

[an aside:  As I'm typing this, Alex is riding his tricycle around the house buck naked and saying "skew me" to the toys he kicks out of his way.]

I've recently discovered that I am, oddly enough given my self-perceived advanced old age, the youngest member of said mommies group, most of my peers being well educated women who held high-status jobs before having children, so that may explain the context of the discussion.  But, naturally, I still have reason to disagree.  I guess I've never felt defined by my career or by my paycheck or by my job title.  I have always been and will likely continue to be insufferably defined by my personality.  No matter what I'm doing - telling gazillionaires how to invest their cash, changing a crappy diaper or making hot sweet love to my husband - I'm AMANDA.  I'm opinionated, head-strong, mind-blowingly chatty and enthusiastic to an obnoxious degree.  And fortunately, I can be all these things and more as a stay-at-home mom.  I'm making no sacrifices.  In fact, I'm having a fricking ball over here.

But I digress.  I really mean to be talking about something far more important than my annoying personality. I want to talk about the sweat pants.  Or what my favorite TV personality, the lovely Stacy London, calls "The Pajamafication of America".  These women?  These highly educated, formerly high-powered career women?  They wear sweat pants IN PUBLIC.  All the time.

Remember that episode of Seinfeld? 

JERRY: (to George) Again with the sweat pants?

GEORGE: What? I'm comfortable.

JERRY: You know the message you're sending out to the world with these sweat pants? You're telling the world: "I give up. I can't compete in normal society. I'm miserable, so I might as well be comfortable." (George is baffled)

One of these women on Friday quizzed me about the skirt I was wearing, quite appropriately I think, to the playgroup party. 

HER: "Why are you all dressed up, Amanda?" 
ME: "Why not?"
HER: "You mean you normally wear skirts?"
ME:  "I prefer skirts to shorts.  They're more flattering."
HER:  Baffled look. 

And forgive me my bluntness here, personality and all, but if you feel like you've lost your identity? Perhaps, just maybe, just a teeny weeny suggestion, IT COULD BE BECAUSE YOU'VE GIVEN UP ON IT.  At least that's the message you're sending out to the world with the sweat pants and the hair scrunchies and the velcro shoes and the no-makeup and the baggy t-shirts.  You're saying "I'm not important anymore.  I'm just some body's mother." 

Don't get me wrong.  I luuurve me some sweat pants.  In fact, I'm sitting here in front of the computer wearing sweat pants myself right this minute.  And a hoodie.  And a hideous PLAID hair scrunchy.  I'm a fashion NIGHTMARE.  But here's the catch:  I'd SHOOT MYSELF before I'd leave the house looking like this.  Even if I'm just going to hang out at my mom's house or make a trip to Target, I make an effort to look nice.  I pick out an actual outfit.  I try.  And it does WONDERS for my self image.  Don't they always say you should dress for the job you want?  Well the job I want is hot mama.  And I plan to keep dressing the part, thankyouverymuch.

[Edited to add:  Not ALL my mom peers wear sweat pants.  Plenty of them dress just fine.  In this particular case it was the SAME moms who were bitching about their lost identities who were sporting the mom jeans.]

Slow post, quick post, well post, sick post

Some recent cuteness to report on:

Last night he had a very specific request for dinner: "Bowl," he said, "Cheerios."  Easy enough to oblige.  At meal time we always play this game where I make up silly foods to see what he really wants to eat.  He likes the way I get real close to his face and bug my eyes out while I offer my oddball suggestions; it cracks him up.  He always starts the game by saying "sausage?" with his eyebrows up and a big silly grin, then I offer him dog food? monkey poop? coffee? dirty hairbrush? chalk? trash bags?  Whatever I offer him, it doesn't matter, he ALWAYS wants "pasta".  He'd eat it breakfast, lunch and dinner if I let him.

Just now he said "Come on, Harry" while holding the gate open.  Followed shortly by "Come on, Mommy".  He's learning to give orders!

This morning, his first word of the day was "shower".  Or so I thought.  I kept repeating it back to him and he kept shaking his head "no".  I could not for the life of me figure out what he was trying to say.  Fortunately, he was very patient as he repeated the word for me about twenty more times.  I kept trying to understand - shower, tower, power, - until it finally dawned on me - "Stroller".  We bought an umbrella stroller (which I always want to call a strumbroller) and he LIVES to push it around.  Even though it frustrates the heck out of him and he winds up in a pool of tears.  Every time.

He's also a budding little aggressive driver.  Every time we pull up to a red light and there are cars stopped in front of us, he says "Go people!".  Gee, I wonder where he learned that?!?

Double the trouble!

Today I'm getting a dose of what it will be like to have a second child.  We're babysitting Nadia, one of Alex's friends, and she's been great.  I worried briefly that she'd cry for her mom all day, but she's been a perfect little angel and hasn't even cried once (at least not after the first 30 seconds).  She and Alex fell alseep about a half hour ago, so I'm taking advantage of my break to blog and look up meatloaf recipes. 

I can't believe how exhausting it is caring for TWO toddlers at once!  Nadia has been EASY - it's Alex whose been a pain in the butt.  He's so JEALOUS!  Unbelievably so.  He's had several trips to the naughty spot for being mean to Nadia and has had at least three absolute sobbing break-downs over the fact that I am allowing her, in fact encouraging her, to play with HIS toys.  This is the first time we've changed the mom to kids ratio, so he's just acting out.  Fortunately, it's given me plenty of teaching opportunities, if you know what I mean.  The little butthead!

The other thing I'm learning is that I have no idea how to PLAY with toddlers.  Since I've been a stay-at-home-mom, we've mostly gone places - everywhere from out on the back patio to the park,  the mall play area, grandma's house, playgroup, shopping, the museum - anywhere that allows him to run around.  When we are stuck inside for the day, I usually run around cleaning and doing laundry and catching up on housework while Alex plays in whatever room I'm in.  I take frequent breaks to tickle him, sit him on my lap, give him boob and make sure he's got something to keep him happy, but I rarely sit and play with him for more than 10 or 20 minutes at a time.  Now I'm starting to wonder if I've been remiss!

When you watch someone else's kid, you don't want to plop them on the floor with some matchbox cars while you do the dishes, so this is a whole new experience for me.  Unfortunately, the weather is awful today so we're stuck inside.  All I've managed to come up with is reading a lot of books, stacking mega-bloks, blowing a ton of bubbles and chasing them around with Alex's popcorn pushtoy.  I've never actually sat and played with toddlers for this long before.  It's actually pretty fun.  The only problem is that Alex is so incapable of sharing anything that most of my ideas (coloring, making playdough, etc) would end up causing more trouble than fun.  What do YOU do with YOUR kid?  I'm running out of ideas!

The incredibly cute Bad Mood Dude

Alex is at the age where it's virtually impossible to describe him without using the word cute.   He's got that adorable just-learning-to-talk little boy voice and every time he says something, it just makes you want to pass out from a cuteness overdose.  CUTE CUTE CUTE.  I can't help myself from saying it a thousand times a day. 

Yesterday he was sitting in his "high chair" eating "oat meal" when he pointed up to the ceiling light and said "Mommy reach it" followed by "fix it" and "daddy help".  He was remembering that the last time he ate breakfast, Dave and I had been changing the light bulbs.  He's finally beginning to understand the space-time continuum!  Yesterday we changed the light bulb.  After breakfast we are going to grandma's.  He remembers people now and thinks about them when they're not present.  He can tell you who lives at Grandma's house (Dan Dan, Tommy, Grandma and Grandpa) and that uncle Johnny gives him ice cream.

And Tonka Trucks.

It was a delightfully warm-weather weekend.  Alex spent a long time in the pool on grandma's deck playing with his cousins.

And thank god for the pool and his amazing cuteness, because there were times this weekend, and even this morning, when the cuteness was no where to be found.  Times when he was just Bad Mood Dude.  Angry at the world, everyone in it, all of his toys, the dog, his father and especially me and my empty, empty BOOBS.  Nothing seems to distract the boy from these funks until he's damn good and ready to be happy again.  I wouldn't call them tantrums, because it's not so much a piss-fest about a single wrongdoing, it's more like toddler PMS where nothing and no one can do anything to please him.  Fortunately, they don't last long and then Happy McPlays-by-himself-pants returns to entertain his adoring audience once again.