It’s Friday! Now What?

Fridays are somewhat underwhelming for me because I have nothing planned over the weekend. Lately I have been feeling uber stir crazy and it’s driving me – well, crazy. I feel like I’m waiting for something, anticipating something, and then… nothing. It’s an odd anticlimactic feeling and I don’t like it. That being said, it’s time for a little Five Question Friday with Mama M.

1. Do you know how to play a musical instrument?

Sadly, no. If I was being very immature, I would make some lewd comment about the skin flute. But I’m not being immature today. Or lewd. So please disregard. I always wished I had learned though.

2. What is your pet peeve while driving?

Oh this answer is going to require a novel.

*Not using a blinker: Really, how hard is it to flick that lever? Located to the left of your steering wheel, I’m preeettttyyyy sure those come standard equipped on all vehicles.

*Making a right hand turn on red in front of me and then driving below the speed limit: Do you know how tempting it is to NOT slam on my brakes to avoid ramming my car up your ass? Perhaps a few weeks in traction would teach you a lesson, non-driving twit.

*Side seat driving: This is dedicated to both my mother and my husband. Don’t tell me to drive and then sit and fricking criticize me. Last time I checked neither of you were a DMV instructor so SHUT IT. I’ve been driving for well over a decade and aside from one wreck that wasn’t my fault (really, other guy got the ticket), I have a superb record. Rolling your eyes and making snide comments about “women drivers” if I decide to back up and adjust in a parking spot makes me want to sucker punch you in the throat go bat shit crazy. Directing me which route to take when I’ve lived in the same damn town for 27 years and know my way around quite well pisses me off. Contrary to what seems to be your belief, I am not a moron and can get from Point A to Point B without your effed up “shortcuts”.  Oh, and telling me the speed limit is 35 when I’ve – gasp! – got the car up to 36? Yeah, that’s annoying. And it makes me want to floor it and listen to your pleas for mercy.

*Tailgating: This is my biggest pet peeve  which is why I left it for last. It literally makes me see red. Especially when I have my kids in the car. When they are not in the car, I will slam on my brakes and dare you to hit me so that I have a reason to drag you out of your car by your hair and kick the shit out of you. This has not happened yet (most likely because I am rarely in the car without a child) but look for me someday in Police Beat.

All of that makes me sound like a raging psycho, doesn’t it? Ah well. Three cheers for road rage.

3. Would you rather have a housekeeper or unlimited spa services?

A housekeeper!!!! What’s the point of massages and manicures when you’re going to throw your back out scrubbing toilets and mess up those pretty nails with dishpan hands?

4. Is there a song that you hear that will take you back to the moment, like a junior high or high school dance?

Not really high school, but there are quite a few songs that take me back to being 21. I heard “Toxic” by Britney Spears last night (what a classic, right?) and had an immediate flashback to not only being 21, but also very very inebriated and making out with a random in the corner of a bar dancing like a damn fool.

5. What song best represents your life right now?

Hmmmm…. time for some insight into my previous post about censoring my blog. My theme song – and ring tone - o’ the moment is Lover, Lover by Jarrod Niemann. I love the entire song, but especially the last verse. I turn the radio up way louder than necessary to drown out the bitterness that comes through when I spit the lyrics out my horrible voice whilst warbling along.

I know you used to love me in every way
but now I’m giving it up, and I'm tired of crying babe
I can't stand it no longer, it hurts me to say,
but I'm packing up my bags and going far away

And that’s all I have to say about that. For now.

 

If you want to join in on the fun, go HERE and link up!

 

And lest I forget, Happy FRIDAY-FOLLOW! Welcome to my humble bloggy home visitors. Don’t bother taking your shoes off before entering, there’s already enough shit ground into my carpet.

 

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday: Operation No-Nap

Nut was having no part of her nap today. I left my cousin in charge of the kiddos while I went to the doctor and when I came home, I was instructed to peek in to Nut’s room. Here’s what I saw:

She’d been in her hamper and pulled out her Thomas pajamas, which she’d then put on in her own special toddler way. Note the shirt inside out around her neck and the fact that she resembles some sort of mermaid with both legs in one pant leg. She also had half her toy box in bed with her. But on the bright side she was quiet, so I guess I can’t complain too much, right?

PINT: An Ode To My Pants

 

Click HERE if you want to link up and join in the fun.

 

A PINT Love Note:

 

Miscellany Monday: There’s a Snake in My Boots

In the grand scheme of my cluster fuckness, I completely forgot about my self-proclaimed new favorite thing, Miscellany Monday. Epic fail, Nic, epic fail. I’m going to pretend the clock didn’t just turn to midnight here and join in anyways.

one.

PMS is a bitch and so am I when in the throes of it. Consider yourself warned. Do not make a right hand turn on red in front of me and then drive 15 below the speed limit. I may just have to ram my mommy mobile  through your back bumper so that I can reach you in the driver’s seat to sucker punch you in the throat, you non-driving asshat. Way to suck at life.

 

two.

Dear Disney/Pixar, thanks for making Toy Story 3 so effing sad.  I felt like an idiot bawling the last 20 minutes of your animated black hole of despair. I did not come prepared with Kleenex and instead was wiping my face with a napkin that was covered in popcorn butter. Not only was I having to bite my cheek to keep from sobbing, I was also greasy. My 2 year old loudly announcing, “Mama’s sad, Mama’s crying” repeatedly during the aforementioned 20 minute span did not help matters much either. From the laughter, it appears the packed movie theater was entertained by it though.

 

three.

Do not go see Toy Story 3 if you are pregnant, think you may be pregnant,  are PMS’ing, menopausal, emotional, hormonal, sappy, or HAVE FEELINGS. You will cry. If you don’t, you are either devoid of human emotions or you have testicles.

Saying a lot but nothing at all

Sometimes I wish my blog was completely anonymous, that I could really truly say what I wanted to without worry that my grandma or some gossiping frenemy is going to use what I say against me. Looking back at some of my posts, it’s probably hard to believe I sensor myself at all, but I do. Trust me.

The last year has been, in a word, hellacious. Stressful and uncertain and nerve-wracking. And did I mention stressful? I feel like I’ve aged 10 years in the last 10 months and I’m not blaming this solely upon Nocturnal Baby this time. It’s given me a writer’s block of sorts and I hate it. I have been a journaler for as long as I can remember, but I’m finding it hard at this point in my life to get my feelings out. Or at least without all hell breaking loose. Ugh. I know I’m being really vague, but I promise it’ll all come spilling out in one big verbal diarrhea mess sometime soon.

Did that statement gross anybody else out as much as it did me? Gag. Really, that’s the best description I could come up with?? Totally proves my point about Writer’s Block.

A Wrinkle in Time

Here’s the thing: I feel old. Not decrepit–sign-me-up-for-an AARP-membership-eat dinner-at-4pm-drive-20-below-the-speed- limit–give-everyone-a-dollar-for-their-birthday old, mind you, but the other kind. More of the Holy-shit-I’m-27-my-own-age-startles-me-sometimes-it’s-like-I-was-21-and-then-blinked-and-I’m-in-my-late-20’s-and-I-have-two-kids-where-the-hell-did-the-last-decade-go old.

Not helping this out is talking with the bestie about our 10 year high school reunion next summer (!!!!!!!). Nor did the grocery store cashier failing to ask for my ID when I bought wine Monday night help. Especially since he was wearing a button that proclaimed UNDER 40? WE CARD! in giant bold effing letters. But the biggest thing of all? The biggest hit to my delicate post-quarter-life crisis ego? I have a wrinkle on my boobs. My boobs! What.the.fuck. I looked down today at the water park to make sure they were still securely in my starting-to-get-too-big swimsuit (cruel how when you lose weight the first place it drops is from where you don’t want it to) and there it was in all it’s glory, shining in the Midwestern sunlight: A wrinkle. It is by no means my first wrinkle. Or even my second or third. I smile a lot so I’ve got smile lines on my face. Whatever. That’s fine. That’s why they make Oil of Olay (and also why my mother put some in my stocking two Christmases ago). All I could think of was those middle aged women with their leathery looking chesticles and I flipped out. I’m not ready for that. It’s bad enough gravity has started to work it’s magic voodoo on them, that if I’m going out and want any oomph, I have to wear not only a push-up bra but also a spandex-like cami with a built-in bra. I don’t need to add wrinkles. The only crease I want is cleavage, like I had when I was 21 and used that to my advantage (i.e. to get drinks). Sigh. To quote my step-grandma, getting older’s a bitch, ain’t it?

How Much is that Doggie in the Window? FREE

 

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EXHIBIT A:

 

Miscellany Monday

I interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a dose of complete and utterly useless babble.

Just found a new blog hop thingy to join in on and guess what? It involves being random! Dude, how did I not know about this before?? Being random is one of my very favorite things to do and this totally justifies my love of verbal diarrhea!

 

Numero Uno:

I fucking hate cottage cheese. HATE it. And I don’t just mean the stuff that’s shown up on my thighs since birthing children – although I’m not too fond of that kind either. I mean the gross, chunky stuff often found in the refrigerators of the elderly and  bins of a salad bar. The container alone makes me wanna hurl: “ Small Curd, Grade A.:  What.the.shit.  Curd. Who finds that appetizing?? Curd is a derivative of curdled and when I think of that word, I think of spoiled milk.  Or baby spit up that’s been sitting in an infant’s belly for a few hours. <Gag> I’m actually gagging. Need more proof?

This is the remnants of what I found in Nut’s sippy cup that fell behind her bed and wasn’t discovered for over 24 hours:

And this is cottage cheese: 

Notice the similarities? **Shudder**

 

Numero Dos:

I’m no picnic to look at in a swimsuit, but after spending many hours at the water park last week, I have to wonder WHAT IN THE SAM HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??? At least I know nobody wants to see this shit and I cover it up appropriately, why can’t everyone else do the same? Remember those one piece swimsuits from the 80’s/early 90’s that were extremely high cut and had the stomach cut out? Okay, now that you have that image in your head, imagine your grandma in one. Horrifying, right? How do you think I felt seeing that in person on Saturday??  I swear to God, I bet the thing was an antique… the suit, not the lady. Although that wouldn’t be a farfetched assessment either. If you don’t got it, don’t flaunt it!!

Numero Tres:

Keeping in tune with the swimsuit thing, here’s a PSA for the European man who was floating near me on the Lazy River: The short wetsuit was, in a word, weird. We weren’t scuba diving.  The heat index was a hundred and fucking two, not like hypothermia was an issue. Swim trunks cost like, what? $10 at Wal-Mart? If you can spend $25 to get into the park, I’m pretty sure you can check your couch cushions for some more loose change and splurge on the trunks (this also applies to the mullet-ed gentlemen I saw wearing denim cutoffs). You certainly were not pale so I’m pretty sure you weren’t trying to protect your delicate skin. You were, in fact, quite bronzed. And here’s another thing – if you’re going to throw caution to the wind and opt for the stupid wetsuit, please make sure it is not an ill-fitting one. They are supposed to be tight, not loose and baggy. While you had quite an attractive face, your DILF factor was cancelled out by the fact that your wetsuit was up your ass crack. That’s never a good look for anybody, especially somebody who I’m pretty sure all the mommies were trying to picture naked. Way to ruin it for the rest of us, buddy.

 

And that’s all I’ve got! Or at least all I feel like sharing. Once I get going, it’s hard for me to stop.  Please resume your normal activities.

You are getting sleeeeepppyyy

After 9 and a half months of begging/crying/pleading/cursing the skies to get Bug to sleep, would you believe all it took Friday was half a lap around the Lazy River at the water park? One minute he was sitting in my arms splashing, and the next… zzzzzzzzz.  I got him his own little tube, laid him in there, and voila! 45 minutes of slumber on his part while we floated.

What. the. hell? Do you think they made waterbed cribs????

Friday Follow: A Parade?!?

Okay, well not really. But I am joining in on two blog hops today:

Click here for:

and here for:

 

Apparently in the blogging world, Friday is not just a day for praising God that the week is finally over. Who woulda thought? If we’re just meeting for the first time, welcome! If you want to know more about me, you can read this post because honestly it’s Friday and I’m being lazy short on the time needed to type it all out. On a side note, that’s what happens when you decide to take three kids under three to a water park. Getting ready will take more time than what we will actually spend there…

Leave me a comment if you like what I see so I can go check out your blogs too. Love finding new ones to keep me from doing laundry emptying the dishwasher entertained.

5 Q Friday

It’s been a while since I’ve played along with Mama M on her 5 Question Friday posts. Usually I don’t get on until late at night and by then I’m too spent to think. This morning everyone is still sleeping so here we goooo….

 

 

1. What do you think makes a good friend, or friendship?

Merriam-Webster defines friend as “one attached to another by affection or esteem; a favored companion”. I guess that’s true, but it’s also so much MORE than that. A good friend is someone who is there for you when you need it, who’ll lend an ear without judging, knows that sometimes offering up a hug is better than spouting off advice, someone you can tell anything to. Friendships should not be forced or one-sided. This is one I’m struggling with right now. I feel like a lot of my friends have drifted away from me. I realize that I am a stay at home mom, that I’m not always able to go out and do things, that I can’t always drop everything and talk on the phone. But it’d be nice if I was given the benefit of the doubt or the courtesy of an invite. It’d be nice if plans weren’t made with me and then bailed upon. It’d be nice if the line didn’t go mute as soon as I started talking about what was going on with me, if what I was saying wasn’t met with the Uh-huh’s and Oh yeah’s and Mmm, really’s that let me know the person on the other end really isn’t listening, even though I just sat for 25 minutes and listened to their boy drama and work issues. Maybe a line has been drawn in the sand because I’m a mom and they’re not. Or maybe we just weren’t as good of friends as I once thought.

2. What is the last thing you bought & later regretted?

Pizza. I’m on a diet; why the HELL did I buy pizza?!?!?

3. Have you ever had a prank played on you?

I’m sure I have, I just don’t remember it. Lame, huh? Usually I’m the one playing pranks. I guess I’m a good bullshitter because people tend to believe me when I tell them stupid crap.

4. What is your favorite theme park?

DISNEY WORLD!!!! Man, I love that place. It always bums me out that I live so far away. Or at least far away in driving-with-kids-in-the-car terms. 2 days. Blah. When I was in Florida for my sis-in-law’s wedding last spring, the in-laws and I stopped for one day/night in Orlando to take Nut to the Magic Kingdom. She LOVED it. She was only 14 months old and in no way remembers it, but seeing the look on her face while we were there was great. I am planning to take both the kids sometime in 2012. Cannot wait!

5. Have you ever seen someone else give birth?

Do those Miracle of Birth videos we had to watch in health class (in an effort to dissuade us from having sex) count? If not, then no. And I don’t want to. I didn’t even want to see MYSELF give birth, hence the “No Flip-Down Mirror” rule I instituted in the delivery room.

 

Alrighty, that’s my 5 q’s. If you want to join in, head on over to My Little Life and do the same! Happy Friday!

An Eye for an Eye, A Tooth for a Cheek

As soon as the kiddos all went down for their naps, I figured I had two choices. 1) Do laundry  2) Catch up on all the posts on my Google Reader. Needless to say, all my clothes are still dirty, but I am finally all caught up on what’s been going on in the world of my fellow bloggy moms. A lot of you have babies around the same age as Bug. I love to read those since most of the time I am emphatically shaking my head while reading because YES, my baby SOOOOOO does that too! Today though, I came across two posts that kind of bummed me out. Shannon at Webbisodes and Jill at The Chronicles of Corbin both blogged about their babies walking already. Walking. At 10 and 9 months respectively. That’s pretty damn impressive, huh?? Bug came over to check out Shannon’s cute video of her little one buzzing around and started laughing. As I was watching him cruise along the furniture towards me, a terrible thing happened. My inner competitive nature reared its ugly head. When he finally got to where he could get a better look at my laptop, I pointed to the video, and said, “Slacker. That baby’s walking!” He giggled so I repeated myself in that dumb high-pitched Mom voice (you know the one), “Yeah! You’s a slacker! A chunky monkey SLACKER!” He reached his arms out to me in what I thought was a request for a hug. He wrapped his roly poly arms around my neck, opened his mouth, and leaned towards my cheek to give me one of his slobbery kisses. Or so I thought. Do you know that little shit BIT ME?? Clamped right down on my cheek and held on for dear life. All seven of those teeth dug in and it took me screaming my head off for him to finally let go. He laughed manically when he was done too, almost as if to say Eff you, Mommy. Nobody calls me a slacker! Evil, evil infant. I tried to take a picture of the offending teeth marks he left, but thanks to a trip to the water park yesterday, I have so many fricking freckles that trying to find the mark was like some sort of fucked up game of Where’s Waldo,The Ginger Addition. Apparently Bug was repentant because when I came back into the room, he’d put himself in jail.

 

He looks like he was in there thinking about what he’d done, doncha think?

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday: The World Is Her Canvas

Nut was wearing a brand new white shirt on Monday so as I sat her down for her corn dog lunch, I took it off and set it aside. She insists that she have “sauce!!” for everything she eats and I knew globs of mustard would wind up on that new pristine shirt.  I left her at the table to go upstairs to change Bug and to get the little guy I babysit up from his nap. I come back downstairs and find this:

I yelled, “WHAT did you do that for??!!!”

Her response? “Mama! I paint!!!”

It was one of those times where you want so badly to be mad, but you can’t help yourself and start laughing. The ironic part is, I’m sure if I’d just left her flippin’ shirt on her, she wouldn’t even have been tempted to paint herself with her corndog. Sigh. Never a dull moment!!

Ogres and Oh God’s

I swear to you all that if I have to watch Shrek one more frigging time, I am GOING TO GO INSANE. Really. Either that or I’m going to down an entire bottle of pills, slam a bottle of Jack, and hope there’s no ogres in the afterlife. I blame myself for creating this monster. I’m sick of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (because really, one can only watch Goofbot so many times before deliria sets in), can’t take any more Thomas the Tank Engine, or Straw-buh-buh-buh-buh-berry Shortcake so when I saw HBO was showing Shrek a few weeks ago, I grabbed the remote and set the DVR. I admit it was for slightly selfish reasons. I loved (or at least used to) the movie, in fact, I could quote large chunks of the dialogue on demand, and I wanted Nut to at least know the characters somewhat before I took her to see the new movie so I wouldn’t look like a creeper sitting in a children’s movie laughing by myself. Big mistake. Huge. We watch it over and over and over again. And then we watch it some more. Oh, and just when you think that’s the end of it? Yeah, we watch it again. Last week she colored her arms and legs with a green marker and proudly announced, “Mama! I Chuck (did I mention her pronunciation sounds a lot like Chuck?)!!” Photographic evidence is below:

Anytime I ask her what she wants for lunch, she responds, “'Donal’s Chuck Happy Meal!” This is what I get for a) getting her a Shrek Happy Meal after we saw the movie and b) asking a 2 year old what she wants to eat. We ran by McDonald’s one Sunday morning to get breakfast and to curb her cries, I wound up buying her a Shrek glass as they don’t make sausage burrito kids’ meals. Since she’s 2, she drinks out of a sippy cup 99% of the time, so the cup was kind of pointless (although it did shut her up). Seeing as how they wound up being recalled, that’s probably a good thing. Only guess who’s been chugging water out of the blasted thing all day long for about 3 weeks now? Yeah, that’d be me. Damn you, Shrek!

Today of all days, I get up, go to turn the TV on for my daily dose of the news (read as: a blissful 30 minutes of television that’s not animated), and…. nothing. I thought perhaps I hadn’t hit the power button before flopping onto the couch so I tried the remote. No such luck.  Oh God, are you kidding me?!?  I moaned at the ceiling. Because, you know, that’s my way of talking to God. Through the ceiling. What the hell was I going to do on a rainy day with TV and a cooped up toddler? Granted I know the entire movie by heart now, but somehow I don’t think my dramatic reenactment was going to cut it. I went and woke DH up and after his “expert” (cough, cough) three minute analysis, he diagnosed it as “fucked” and stormed off in a huff to Wal-Mart.  He came back with a brand new TV for the living room which seemed kind of a rash move, but whatever. He claimed the television in my bedroom was too heavy to move (I’ll give him that) and that “his” TV in the man cave was too big for us to haul up the stairs. That, my friends is a load of shit, since I’ve moved that thing by myself when I was 8 months pregnant and decided to rearrange while in a nesting frenzy. He just didn’t want to give up his big screen, he’s not fooling me. Either way, peace was restored in our household, because you know that in the 30 minutes he was gone, of course Nut woke up and immediately started demanding Chuck be turned on for her viewing pleasure. She got her wish. Twice actually because guess what? We’re halfway through it again. Sigh. I think it’s only appropriate I end this with a Shrek quote, don’t you?

“I’m a donkey on the edge!!!”

Two by two

I typed this up Wednesday, but when I went to post it my internet wouldn’t connect. Thinking it was just our wonderful service provider, I saved it and waited. Tried again, nothing. Checked the router. It was fine. It wasn’t until our satellite started acting wonky, that I went in the backyard to investigate. Imagine my surprise when I found our genius of a canine trying to rip the DISH cable away from the house. I went to check on the internet cable and found the utility box OPEN with the wires chewed in two. Thank you, Mo, you beast of burden. Here’s what should have posted days ago:

I’ve been all but MIA the last week, but I’m not taking the fall for this one. I’ll blame most of it on my newest arch nemesis, Mother Nature. I don’t know what she has against me (maybe the constant barrage of profanity directed her way..?), but I’m convinced she hates me. Take last Wednesday for example:

Around 3:00, some nasty storms developed near me. A severe thunderstorm warning was issued, expect 60 mph winds, hail, deadly lightning, heavy downpours, yada yada. Not to say that I don’t pay attention to the weather because I do (a tornado hit my house once and pretty much traumatized me but that’s a story for another day). I was just irritated because I was supposed to make an hour and a half drive that evening to pick up something from my brother’s girlfriend and have dinner with a friend and who wants to drive in that shit? Not me. I had just finished drying my hair, was way ahead of schedule on picking up the house, sanitized the toys, had half the dishwasher unloaded, happy kids. Not to pat myself on the back, but I was feeling pretty damn on top of things. Then the storm hits. I have never seen so much rain in such a short period of time in my life. To say it was pouring was an understatement, but I can’t come up with a better description. Torrential downpour? Biblical flooding? Anyways, about ten minutes into the Midwestern hurricane, I hear what suspiciously sounds like rushing water somewhere in my house. We have a tri-level so I ran downstairs to investigate. Holy God, people. We have a walk out with a door that leads to an outdoor stairwell. Coming in on either side of the door hinges was what I could best describe as a waterfall. I had no idea what to do. I looked out the window of the back door and water was probably standing a good three feet in the well. I thought maybe the drain was clogged, so I ran like a bat outta hell into the backyard – in the 60 mph wind, hail, and aforementioned deadly lightning – to see if there was anything I could do to help it drain. There is a metal gate (hello, lightning rod!) around the stairwell so I scaled it, jumped down into waist deep water and started digging. The whole time, I’m praying Please God, don’t let me get struck by lightning, please, please, PLEASE  while visions of all the cursing, drinking, and premarital sex I had danced in my head. I was a goner, I was sure of it. I didn’t get much out of the drain, and it was then that I noticed it was actually bubbling so I thought eff it and went back in the house. Looking out my front window, I noticed there was almost a foot of water in our cul-de-sac so Mystery Solved! The rain was too much for the drainage system to handle so it was pushing it back up. After all was said and done, I wound up with standing water in my entire lower level, a wet furnace that caused the blower on the A/C to go out, and a house that smelled like a lake. The final rainfall total? 5 inches in less than 2 hours. WTF? You needed an ark to get around town. Luckily insurance is covering our losses and our air was fixed late Friday. I’m telling you, I would SUCK as a pioneer. I was miserable without my temperature-controlled 69 degree house. So yeah. There ya go. My excuse. Now all I need to do is catch up on my Google Reader. Considering I have a week’s worth of reading and four kids to watch, I should be done sometime around two weeks from never.