Mandajuice

Flickrage

Is it me or is the Internet totally dead this week?  Okay.  Just me then.

Yesterday I bought a scanner so I can scan my receipts for the new website (can you say TAX DEDUCTION, Baby!) and I couldn't resist spending the evening uploading a butt-ton of photos from my childhood.  Months ago I actually tried to take pictures of the pictures, but it was a serious pain and they looked awful.  So here it is, evidence that I was once sweet and innocent:

Here are some of Alex I took the other day, primarily because he was filthy and dirty little boys are cute.  Then they become dirty old men.

And finally, our day with the Dinosaurs.  I was totally right, by the way, he wasn't really interested. The highlight of his day was the sand table where he could dig up dinosaur bones.

Alexander Corleone

My mom bought Alex a dump truck and bulldozer set at Walgreens yesterday and they are frustrating the crap out of him because they aren't strong enough to hold anything.  So he's crying and throwing a fit and then, suddenly, he figures out a way he can get the bulldozer to hold the magic rocks he's so desperately been trying to dump.  It's a total EUREKA! moment and goes, "Look Mom!  I figured it out!"  And then, quoting his father, he says:

"See! I'm not Fredo!"

The Naked Ledger

Remember when we all went to Menlo Park for a big meeting with Club Mom?  Well, recently they posted their job openings for topical blogs. I fully intended to mention it WEEKS ago, but then again I also fully intended to finish my application earlier than, well, today.  Go there NOW (since the deadline is tomorrow) if you're a mom whose interested in a paid blogging gig!!!!  Anyway, I was on this opportunity like flies on shit (well, like a slothfully pregnant, procrastinating fly).  I've been wanting to do something new and have had this idea floating around in my head (and torturing me in my sleep) for months now.

You know how I have all that financial planning experience atrophying in my mommy brain?  Or maybe you don't because I never talk about it anymore.  But I worked as a financial consultant for seven years before staying home with Alex and I've decided to work that muscle again in an effort to earn some money and simultaneously get us back on track with our budgeting.  I'm hoping to do it as a paid gig for ClubMom, but I plan to do it whether they pay me for it or not.  So here's the plan:

I'm opening up our checkbook for all the Internet to see.  I figure hearing what other people spend is second only to hearing what they do in the bedroom.  How can you NOT want to know?  And since I'm not quite ready to talk about my sex life (uh, Hi Grandma!), I'll give you the next best thing:

The Naked Ledger

I've got a few entries up there now, but I won't officially start everything until April.  This is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.  Either way, mandajuice.com isn't going anywhere so stay tuned - un-drunken thirtieth birthday party debauchery coming soon!

Two and a HALF

Today is Alex's half-birthday, aka Dooderpants version 2.5.  I would say I can't believe he's that old already, but what I really feel is that I can't believe he's not already older.  I can barely even call him a toddler anymore since he's just such a KID.  Aside from his continuing addiction to fondling my hair, his babyness is completely gone.

And although this post is meant to be about him, all I can think about is this simple equation:

if Alex = 2.5, then Mom = 30.

Three. Oh.  As in THIRTY.  I'm having trouble even SAYING it, much less admitting to myself that it could be true, but I turn 30 on Saturday.  And as much as I wish it were, this isn't an April Fool's joke.  I'm actually turning 30.  In real life.  I'm going to be OLD.  My youth is over. 

Hold me.

Bad, bad parents

Last night we attended a Rosary held for the oldest member of Dave's family, a sweet, lovely woman who died at the ripe age of 94.  She'd only been in assisted living for about a year and then only because her body was giving out, not her mind.  This means she lived in her own house until she was 93.  I only hope I'll be so fortunate.  I knew very little about Josie and rarely held a conversation with her (my guess is I always talked a bit too fast and she was too polite to ask me to slow down), but every time I saw her she would take my face in her hands, kiss me on the cheek and give me a big hug, always with a smile on her face.

Now I'm not Catholic, so the whole service was, as usual, just beyond my grasp.  Catholicism is very ritualistic and if you don't know the rituals, you feel like a total outsider.  So it was no skin off my back to stay in the lobby with Alex until the service was over.  And at first he was good, I thought, and actually seemed to understand the concept of whispering.  It wasn't until after the service that it all went to hell in a handbasket.

Dave has one of those families that only gets together for weddings and funerals.  And while this was a somber affair, no one there was sobbing their eyes out or crying about the injustice of an untimely death.  Josie went the way we all hope to go.  And so, after paying our respects, we all enjoyed eachother's company and caught up.  The bigger kids sat and played together and Alex was really the only munchkin gremlin.  And the strange thing is, neither Dave nor I noticed that he was being a total craphead.  It. did. not. register. with. us.  We were busy talking with the family and that thing happened where I thought Dave was on deck and maybe he thought I was on deck and so we both kind of ignored the boy and did our own thing. 

It wasn't until we got back to the car that it hit us:  Alex was a holy terror.  Here we were at a funeral with a dead loved one in the room and he was literally running around, climbing on the pews, jumping in circles - you name it.  It was horrible.  And it was like Dave and I were paralyzed.  We just completely didn't notice it.  I mean, we noticed it, but it didn't register with us to care or to even stop him.  At one point, I was chatting with Dave's Aunt and Alex was five feet away from me and pulling open random desk drawers.  When he spilled one over, I was so busy having a conversation that as I bent over to pick it up, I didn't even punish him.  I'm pretty sure the conversation was even about what a wild child he is.

We feel like such idiots.  Total, complete morons.  We are THOSE PARENTS.  The ones who think their child is so sweet and adorable that they completely see past the totally OBNOXIOUS things their child is doing.  I don't blame Alex at all - he was just doing what he does best.  I blame us for not doing anything about it.  The strange thing is how we didn't even notice it until after the fact.  It wasn't until we were in the car that we wanted to crawl into our own graves.

Frankly, we should've seen this coming.

Mom, you have snot on your butt

I'm wearing black velour pants (the last pair of maternity pants that don't cut off my circulation) and Alex has a cold.  You do the math.

Tomorrow we're taking Alex to the Dinosaur exhibit at the Lawrence Hall of Science.  So we've been trying to get him excited about Dinosaurs.  We "bowowed" a bunch of Dinosaur books from the library and even tried a couple of DVD's on the subject.  And?  He has absolutely NO interest in them whatsoever.  The only dinosaur book he even let me finish reading to him was Danny and the Dinosaur, and that was because it actually had a plot.  Dinosaurs don't have engines.  It's as simple as that.  It might not be a Monster Truck Rally, but we're dragging his adorable butt there anyways.

Dump trucks do important work!

This is totally a work in progress, but go here to watch Alex discussing the finer points of DUMP TRUCKS.

Weighing in

Gah.  That title reminds me SO MUCH of Weight Watchers meetings. If you want to torture me, take me to a WW meeting.  I still have nightmares about them.

But this whole "False Advertising" thing has gotten everyone's panties in a bunch and since fatness is one of the subjects on which I could write a book (or three), I figure I better weigh in (har har har).   Seriously, you will have NO IDEA what I'm talking about in this post unless you start here.

Basically, the internets are ablaze with controversy over whether or not married women owe it to their husbands to stay thin, meaning at or near what they weighed on the wedding day.  I've mostly stayed out of this debate because for one thing, even at 8 months pregnant I'm still a good 20 pounds under my wedding day weight and also because my response to the issue has nothing to do with the issue itself.  When MIM says,

"Look, my point is, I work to maintain my figure for myself and my husband. If I had been 160 pounds when we married that would one thing. Then it would be totally unreasonable for him to want me to be 120 pounds. But it would be false advertising if he'd married his 120 pound girlfriend and ended up with a 160 pound wife."

My reaction is ON WHAT PLANET IS 160 POUNDS FAT?!?!?  Poor Dave has NEVER had a 160 pound wife and I hope for his sake that he never has a 120 pound wife since that would mean I was dead.  I completely can't relate this debate and keep thinking to myself that these women have no concept of the word "FAT".  Fat is when you can't see your own feet and when you can't wipe your own ass, not when you've gained 30 or 40 pounds and your size 8's no longer fit.  It just PAINS to me to read about how all of these totally HEALTHY (not to mention FOXY) women are worried and upset and have lost their self-esteem because they aren't living up to their own ridiculous ideals about weight.  Really.  It's starting to get pathetic.  And my ability to empathize with them is dwindling the more I read - I just wish these women could really see how beautiful they are.

I think I summed up my response to the whole husband thing in a comment I left on Cecily's blog:  "for [these women] wearing a size 12 is like a death sentence and for me it's a f**king party. And they wonder why their husbands are complaining!" 

I also have the benefit of viewing this argument from the other side, seeing as I am (or was up until I became Preggo the Manatee) basically at a normal weight (by my standards at least) and my husband is still, well, not.  And yes, I do want my husband to lose weight.  But it has nothing to do with what he LOOKS like or what kind of arm-candy I want to carry around.  I want him to be healthy and happy with HIMSELF.  If he's a grump at his current weight (which OMG HE TOTALLY IS) then I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't at least encourage him to eat healthier and try to get some exercise.  If he was happy with his current weight (and healthy), then *I* would be happy with his current weight.  And that's all I think we owe our spouses - we need to be good enough for ourselves before we can be good enough for them. 

Hello. I'm cranky. Again.

I can't sleep.  It's driving me nuts.  The funny thing about being pregnant is how much you forget what it's like once it's over.  It's not until it happens again that you remember (vividly) how it's not so much fun after all.  Like at first you just can't WAIT for the baby to start moving because it's oh. so. precious.  And then the baby gets bigger and bigger and suddenly the kicks aren't so cute anymore.  They hurt.  And you wake up at 3AM feeling like some insane hobgoblin is practicing for her black belt on your bladder. 

Or better yet!  The baby gets hiccups every night just as your trying to fall asleep on your totally uncomfortable sleep number bed.  And the hiccups aren't like you remember with the first baby because this baby is breech, which means, rather than making your belly jiggle in an adorable Santa Claus way, they feel like a series of tiny swift punches to your girly bits (I'm guessing it's her shoulder poking me down there, but it feels like I'm getting pap-smeared over and over again by a tiny fist). 

And you wake up sweaty and feel like you can't breathe most of the night and then, of course, there's the eight bazillion trips to the bathroom.  And you dont' want anyone to even THINK about touching you.  Or breathing on you.  Or touching or breathing anything even remotely NEAR you.  It's fun.  I guess that's what I'm saying.  Pregnancy is SO. MUCH. FUN.

I'm pretty sure Alex has a cold

You know, because of the snot all over his sleeves and the not being able to breathe.  So we've been laying low, which is obviously fine by me since sitting on my ass is my number one goal for at least the next two months.  Yesterday we went to the library and I got a library card, something I haven't had since I was literally a kid myself.  How pathetic is that?  That I could go twenty years and not actually USE a library?  I blame the Internet.  Anyway, we "bowowed" three Lumber Jack books and two more about Monster trucks.  The boy was stoked.  I may even take him back today.  Next time I'll definitely browse the catalog before we leave the house and not while I'm trying to keep him from running around the adult fiction section like a banshee.  [I think the biggest adjustment I'm going to have to make in order to become a real-life library patron is to stop thinking about why they call it "adult fiction".]

Did I mention that we had friends over on Saturday night and that even though his friend Joe is like twice as big as he is, Alex managed to make him cry a record number of times?  Our boy continues to be a menance and even though it's mostly unintentional, it's still a problem and we still don't really have a good solution.  Part of me thinks he may need some older friends who are better matched with his rowdiness and who might actually, you know, kick back.  It would do him some good to be the one crying for a change.  But how do I find that?  So far I've only chosen his playmates based on how much I like their mothers, which has been great for me, but now that I really think about it, hasn't been that great for him OR for his friends, who always seem to end up injured or crying or both.  Gah.  What to do?