Rude much

When people ask me questions, I very rarely think to ask them reciprocal questions.  I just answer them.  So when you ask me what my plans are for the weekend, don't expect me to ask you..because I won't...because I am apparently an ass.  Because, you know, I am perfectly willing to talk about myself and my plans but can't be bothered with showing any interest in you.

So, someone will ask me something, I answer, I don't ask anything back and then about 15 minutes later it hits me how rude I just was.  So if I am still with that person, I try to slyly ask whatever it was I should have asked 15 minutes ago.  But I am not sly.  Ever.  And then I just feel like more of an ass.

-Hey Jackie!  How's Alex?

-Oh he's good!

...

15 minute pause

...

-Hey...how's your kid?

Quick Tips

When you are rinsing out a Campbell's Tomato Soup can in preparation for recycling it, and it is one of the cool ones with the pull tab lids, do not under any circumstances run your pointer finger and thumb along the underside of the lip of the can to get the sticky condensed soup to release it's ninja grip from the can. You will slice your fingers.  A lot.

And while I am generously doling out home ec advice, do not grab the meat thermometer out of the chicken you just took out of a 350 degree oven.  It is metal.  It conducts heat.  It will conduct all 350 of those degrees right onto your fingertips.

You are welcome.

Sweet calf action

On a happy note, I am currently wearing my black knee high hooker boots.  And they are no longer so tight on my calves that circulation is slowed.  Yeeeeeaaaaah baby!

I am still stuck at -26lbs and I am yet to get back into a consistent workout schedule due to the hamstring blow-out, but my hooker boots fit!  Happy Tuesday.

In plain sight

I know I sound like a broken record, but I promise I am really trying to remember to take my evening keepmybrainsinorder pill.  Really trying and mostly failing.  But sometimes I do remember and everything stays on an even keel.  For a little bit.  Until it doesn't.  And then it sucks.

If you haven't guessed it, I was a little on the crazy side this weekend.  Some really great friends moved back to town this past weekend.  And they brought their new snuggly baby with them!  To avoid them having to rent any sort of moving truck, a bunch of us got our trucks and trailers together to get the job done.  I went on Saturday and then said Travis could help on Sunday.  Awfully nice of me to volunteer him without asking him, right?  But since Travis is Travis, he was happy to help.

So early Sunday morning he got up and drove to Pewaukee to load up the truck and trailer.  And instead of being extra nice since I was the one that volunteered him, I called him at 2:45 and yelled at him because he wasn't home yet.  And what is he doing?!  And why hasn't he called me?!  Yeah....why hasn't he taken time out of moving our friends to call me and tell me that he is still moving our friends and that they are all working to get done before kick-off of the Packer game?  How dare he?!?  When I snottily asked what he was doing, he quickly responded, "Well babe, we just lit the bonfire and were about to start a rousing round of Kumbayah."  I probably deserved that.

Shortly after that horrible conversation where I proved myself to be a nutball, I sent him a text apologizing and acknowledging I had no right to be upset.  He got home and we went about the rest of our day.  After eating ourselves sick while watching the game at Kari and Brent's, we came home.  I put the boy down and came into the living room and asked him if he had solidified his plans for leaving me.  And he asked why.  Which blew me away.  If the roles had been reversed, I would have been stewing about that incident all day.  So, I reminded him of the phone call and told him I was sorry for being psychotic.  And all he did was come over give me a hug and say, "The apology was nice.  You are not psychotic.  Psychotic would have been if you hadn't realized you were being nuts."

I am putting my pills on the window sill in front of the kitchen sink.  Pretty sure he deserves a not crazy wife.

Go Pack Go!

I think the main reason the Packers beat up on those stinky Bears yesterday is because my boys are so frickin' cute in supporting the Pack.

Oh really?

All of a sudden, Alex is waking up in the middle of the night.  Usually just once, but it has been every night for about a week.  And he isn't just waking up calmly.  It seems as though he is having nightmares again.  So that's exciting.

When I go down there to calm him down, he always asks me to hold him and I give him a quick hug and tell him it is still time to lay down.  That it is time for more sleeps and not time to be awake yet.  So far this has been working and back to sleepytime we go.

Last night was no different.  He woke up crying and yelling.  So I went down there, opened his door to see him kneeling in his crib.  He immediately stopped crying and said, "It's time to lay down Mom."  Like I was the reason we were both awake at 1:28AM.

Exciting Good-byes

So I thought Alex's little bon voyage ticker tape parade to toilet bowl inhabitants was something they had possibly taught the kids at day care to get them excited about using the bathroom instead of their pants.  I thought wrong.  My kid is the only kid who loudly and excitedly sends his bodily excretions off to the waste water treatment plant.

1 to 1

I have been doing really well at cleaning up my expletives when the boy is around.  When he isn't around...watch the hellassbitchfuckshit out.  But what he doesn't know/hear won't hurt him, right?  So with his delicate ears in mind, I have been more cognizant of swearing when he is within ear shot.

I have, however, failed with something else.  When someone tells me a bit of information or a story that is surprising or exciting or shocking, my standard response is "Shut. UP!  SHUT UP.  Shut up."  Kinda like Elaine Bettis's "Get OUT!"  Any way, I hadn't really noticed how often I use that phrase...especially while I am on the phone in the car with my child in the backseat.  Alex was kind enough to show me the other day.

He was walking around the back yard with the ipod pretending it was a phone and he just kept saying "Shut. UP!  SHUT UP.  Shut up."  Over and over and over.  And of course Travis was there to witness and hasn't let me live it down.  I will say Alex has only used Shut. Up. in the same way I do.  He hasn't meanly told someone to actually shut up.  Perfect example is the other day when he went upstairs to ask Travis what he was doing and when Travis said he was changing his clothes so they could mow the lawn, Alex responded with an excited  "Shut UP!"  Silver lining people.

As of Tuesday night, Travis can no longer judge me.  I was reading books with Alex before bed and Travis came in to say goodnight.  Travis always says, "Te amo." and Alex always answers, "Amo!"  Sweet stuff all around.  But on Tuesday night after Travis said his line, Alex put on his best "I am totally being a little shit" expression and refused to answer him.  So as Travis was walking out of the room, he dejectedly said, "That's fine Alex.  Whatever."  And for the next 45 seconds, all that kid would say is "Whatever Daddy.  What-Ever."

It's all tied up in the Classiest Parent Competition in the Julius house.

I Give You: Today's Installment of T.M.I.

I have a booger that refuses to come out.  No matter how freaking hard I blow my nose, the little booger bastard will not come out.  I would say it wouldn't budge, but that would be a lie.  It budges.  Oh it budges.  Every time I inhale or exhale.  Which I find both annoying and shocking.  Why does it move with the small amount of air I am taking in and pushing out when it refuses to vacate the premises when I blow air out with the force of an F-16 jet engine?

Am I the only person that experiences these little guys?  I can't be.  People that only want to marry a leprechaun that makes them macaroni and cheese with bologna can find someone that has that exact same thing goin' on.  There must be someone else that has this issue.  Perhaps someone that doesn't feel the need to waste other people's time by writing about boogers on the Internet.  Yes, perhaps that.

Bathroom adventures

Like I have said before, we are slowly working on ridding our lives of diapers.  The only thing that makes the intimidation of this task bearable at all is being in the bathroom with Alex.  The toilet is a thing of magic and intrigue for him.

He is still showing no interest in using the bathroom himself while at home, but he is obsessed when either Travis or I are in there...

What doing Mama?
Going potty.
Why?
Because I have to go potty.
Why?
Because that's what happens when Mommy drinks to deal with answering "Why?" so many freaking times!

Aaaaaanyway, he is more excited because we let him flush the toilet.  And that is where this whole adventure pays off.  He stands there, flushes the toilet, and while waving like a maniac starts yelling, "BUHBYE PEE!  BUHBYE POOP!  BUHBYE EWIES!"  And then he slams the lid shut.  It makes me laugh every single time.

Happy Tuesday

It's been a rough summer for my work.  Normally throughout the year there are jobs here and there that we make mistakes on.  But for some reason this summer we have had a bunch of them all smashed into a small time frame.  Some of them are my fault, some are not, but when there are only 3 people in the whole company, everyone has to deal with them.  Granted my boss is the only one that deals with them financially.

The mistakes I have made are just details that I accidentally overlooked.  But when the details are the dimensions of a unit or the quantity of units on a job, they are pretty important details.  And pretty costly details.  And I gotta admit, it sucks way more when you make mistakes and it's someone else's money.  When we had the bar and one of us screwed something up at least it was our money we were messing with.  Don't get me wrong, it sucks when it's your money too, but when you have to tell someone you made a mistake and it is most likely going to cost them about $500, it stings juuuuust a little bit more.

What sucks even more than making the mistakes is that it has noticeably changed my relationship with my boss.  I am back to being completely unsure of myself and it is quite obvious, and understandable, that his confidence in my performance has plummeted.  Awesomesauce all around.

Stylin

Due to the ridiculous time my beast child wakes up and my love of sleep, I shower at night so as to save time in the morning.  A lot of times I end up going to bed with wet hair...which leads to interesting hair dos in the morning.  Normally, I just put my hair up in a pony tail and SHAZAM! problem solved.  This morning was cold and I wasn't feelin' the pony tail, so I just left it.  I felt leaving it was giving a hippie-esque all natural vibe to my look today.

My boss asked if I was frazzled because my hair is all over the place today.  Perhaps a pony tail then.

Ok, now what?

Once again I am letting day care take the lead on raising my child.  I have no idea how to go about potty training.  And, much like when he started eating solid foods, I am totally intimidated by the task at hand.  I find myself just shutting down when I think about it.  Which is totally helpful.  I have thought about getting a book or two on the subject, but then I get all freaked out trying to decide which one to get.  I have looked on some different "Mom" websites and chat boards, but I find time and time again I just end up wanting to punch those people in the face.  It seems the women on the sites I have explored either are completely uninformational (we are calling this a word for today) or are obnoxiously judgmental and just straight up mean.  Yay for sisterhood.

So here's my plan so far....

Watch what day care does and try to mimic.  And let Alex be my guide.

Solid plan, right?  We shall see.

All of this brings me to another point.  When things like this come up and I find myself looking to day care to help with/take care of the task, I feel more inadequate as a parent than ever.  Initially I feel like allowing them to take the lead is a good idea since they aren't new to this game.  But then I quickly start feeling like letting them take the reigns is just being lazy, and justifying it by saying they know better than I, is a total cop-out.  But right now, I am too clueless and nervous and anxious to not let them show me the potty training ways so I guess I should suck it up.

I did beat them to the punch on one thing...I taught that kid which way is left and which way is right.  Ha!  Take that!

Also, I am ecstatic I made it through this post while only using the horrible word "potty" two times.  Well, three now Lora.

Moooooooo!

I didn't eat lunch before I left Platteville on Sunday, so by the time I got to Madison to get Trav, I was one hungry lady.  Lucky for me, there is an Arby's at the park & ride where we picked up Travis.  And even luckier, Travis got there before Alex and I, so he went and got me a sandwich.  I didn't want fries or anything overtly greasy, so I requested a large roast beef and a soda.

I cannot believe it is legal to put that much roast beef on a single sandwich.  It was huge.  Don't get me wrong, I ate the whole thing.  But it seemed more of an epic accomplishment than a hunger satisfying exercise when I was done.  So today I headed on over to Arbys.com to see juuuust how much horrible for you food I ingested...

The large roast beef sandwich with no cheese, no other toppings, just roast beef and a bun weighs in at just under 10oz., 610 calories and 29 grams of fat.  But!  I got 10% of my daily calcium.  All of those things combined to make a gloriously delicious giant roast beef sandwich.

Now comes the time when I make the admission that up until a few short years ago, I had no clue the Arby's logo was a cowboy hat. 

 I am applying for my detective's license tomorrow.

Early morning shenanigans

As earlier mentioned, Alex and I were in Platteville most of the weekend.  Two of Travis's brothers and one of their friends were staying at our house for a Badger game weekend.  Read:  4 guys drinking a whole bunch, watching some football, coming and going at all hours, and being mostly gross in my house.  Since our house is on the no where near big side, I decided it would be way easier for the beast and me to vacate.  So off we went on Friday night.

Everything was great.  Alex had a great time playing with his cousins and Julie and I had a great time hanging out.  The only part that sucked was Saturday night.  Julie and I went to bed around 11:45.  Alex woke up at 12:45 asking for milk.  And then again at 1.  And then again at 1:15.  And then he didn't want to be in his pack-n-play.  So I pulled him into the giant continent sized bed Julie and I were sleeping in.  And he laid there talking to me for a half hour.  Finally my pleading and begging and telling him to shhhh...it's time for more sleeps got him to lay still and fall asleep.  With his feet wedged nicely in my chest and stomach.  Not so much quality sleep for me.  And then he woke up for the day at 7am.

I sleepily took him into the living room, changed his completely soggy diaper (3 milk requests goes right through ya I guess), and sat down on the couch in hopes of some cartoons.  He, on the other hand, was much more interested in playing with the shoes and vacuum near the front door.  Which was fine until I heard the little velcro strips on his diaper being pulled apart.  When I asked why he was taking his diaper off he said he had to go potty.  So I sat him on the toilet where he immediately announced he was all done.  Fine.  Back into the living room.  I sat down on the floor and asked him to come over so I could get his diaper back on.  He was once again enthralled with the vacuum.  So I asked him again, but this time I was so tired and trying so hard to not get frustrated I had my eyes closed while I sat there asking.  I had my eyes closed for at most 8 seconds.  I opened them to see him standing in front of me showing me the "ewies" on his fingers.  Ewies by the way?  Poop.

So I look and sure enough he has poop on his butt.  I lay him down to clean him properly and get a diaper on him to avoid any further mess.  At which point he starts touching his legs and his belly and basically finger painting himself with poop.  And while I am frantically trying to stop the madness, I glance up and see a turd so huge I actually said out loud, "Did the dog poop on the carpet?"  Nope.  That giant ewie came from my kid.  Not the large Golden Retriever.  My 2 year old kid.  Who apparently can poop at the speed of light.

Footprints

We dropped the beast off at my parents' for a bit yesterday afternoon so we could go meet Claire and Jeff's new baby.  Alex and I came straight from Platteville, stopping in Madison to pick up Travis.  So by the time we got to my parents', we had been in the car for a little over 2&1/2 hours.  I didn't think another 1/2 hour in the car and then being confined to a hospital room was going to go over to well with my little tornado, so we left him behind when we went to the hospital.  Happy Grandparents' Day Grandma and Grandpa Z!

The new baby?  Cutest.  Baby.  Ever.  Seriously.

In the two hours we were gone, Alex managed to get himself so dirty, my mom and sister had to give him a bath.  So he was squeaky clean when we got back.  It's not good, but I have honestly gotten to the point that if he isn't sticky to the touch, I am not adamant about bathing him.  He gets a bath about every other day, but sometimes time gets away from us and he hasn't had a bath in 5 days.  Whatever.

Anywho, he was all clean.  But since I don't care what he is wearing when he is running around, he wasn't wearing shoes.  So his feet were black by the time we left.  They were still black this morning.  I paused briefly when putting on his socks, but said screw it and put his filthy little feet in his socks.

How much you wanna bet they are painting with their feet at day care today?

What doing Daddy?

Having a cracked radiator in your car is not cool.  Having a husband that can buy a car's owners manual, read the radiator section, and then replace the radiator in a couple hours time is however, super cool.  Having a son that wants to do everything his daddy is doing is heartstoppingly, breathtakingly, tearjerkingly awesome.  It really is the little things that make the good things so much better.

K, I think I am done being all mushy for today.

Every morning I bring Alex's juice cup in the car.  And every day it hangs out in my office refrigerator all day and then makes the journey home with us.  I do this so I don't have to sit through 15 minutes of telling my child that while I don't have any juice in the car, there is juice at home, where we will soon be...over and over and over.

Yesterday was no different.  As soon as I got him all strapped in, he asked for his juice.  He even asked with a please!  It is ridiculous how excited I get when he uses his manners without being asked.  So I handed him his juice while feeling like I am totally kicking Parenting's ass.  And as quickly as that winning feeling appeared, my darling child snatched it away with one tiny question.

"Is there beer in there Mama?"

Progressive Playing

Travis and Alex have taken to building forts in our living room.  First it started with a couple of pillows.  Then it graduated to the couch cushions set upright on the couch.  Last night, the coffee table got involved.  It is awesome.  Every time a fort is completed with its blanket roof, Alex climbs in and then starts yelling, "I in here!  I in here!"

Last night I was trying to make dinner so after the fort building concluded for the evening, Travis took Alex outside.  They started playing on the slide.  While Alex was sliding, Travis started watering some of the dry spots in the lawn.  Which very quickly led to the regular slide becoming a water slide.  And then they gave up on the slide.  His clothes were still wet this morning.