gut rot

It started mid-afternoon, getting worse as evening approached. My stomach would twist, I felt like I could throw up, my heart felt flat and sometimes, especially in the beginning, I cried, like clock-work, every Sunday.

Halloween night, six years ago, was the first night that I *didn't* experience the pang of having to leave my son in the care of someone else as I settled into my cubicle. On a Monday, six years ago today, I started staying home with Henry.

I remember telling my husband that I felt like the luckiest person in the world.

I don't always feel like that anymore, especially when the weather has changed, the nip in the air changes our moods. When we all get forced inside, we all get on each others' nerves a bit more.

But Halloween seems to be this yearly reminder for me, I am lucky. I get to hear the funny things they say about their lunch. I get to see them 'reading' magazines while on the toilet. I get to look into those eyes as they sparkle with a smile, all day long.

There might be some gut rot come Halloween, but it's from eating too many Kit-Kat bars I've snuck out of my boys' bags when they were knocking at the door at a neighbor's house.

Lucky me.

cause we're fancy like that

I can hear my sister from here, over 100 miles away, shouting into her Mac screen 'I told you so!'

When she was engaged and registering for plush new towels and cool little kitchen gadgets she excluded china. I scrunched up my nose and told her she 'would be sorry' because 'at some point in her life she would be adult enough to pull out the china, polish the silverware and place her table for Thanksgiving dinner with a beautiful 12 piece set'

but she scoffed at me, told me she was only going to get something she would use everyday, scanned a couple boxes of dish sets from Target, and went on her merrily way.

I was convinced she would regret it.

Only after celebrating our 8th anniversary a couple weeks ago, and having this epiphany that having a four bedroom house, three kids and two really disgustingly dirty bathrooms, did I figure out that I must finally be an adult

and we've pulled out that china maybe 5 times.

So, my husband went to Home Depot, bought 10 feet of bubble wrap and a few cardboard boxes, and put everything away in storage (much to my defeat).

I negotiated keeping out the silverware.

Our kitchen drawer is now filled with the nicest spoons, knifes and forks around. Ones that I stir my coffee with and ones that I put on the plates for lunchtime with my child care kids.


We even use the salad forks. (FYI, they are suppose to have that little notch in one of the tines, it's suppose to help grab the lettuce salad or something like that. It looks like this:


and by telling you this, I'm totally not saying that I didn't know this and that my mother never called Macy's when the first set arrived complaining there was a defect in the salad fork only to be told ever-so-nicely that they were suppose to look like that. Umm, no way, we are way too classy to not know that.)

So apparently we are now classy people, with fancy everyday forks and spoons,

and apparently I'm now an adult.

How the heck did that happen?

Happy Birthday to me... a giveaway for you!

I can't think of a clever way to insert ottoman coffee table into this post (unless I say something like 'it's my birthday today and all I want to do is put my feet up on my ottoman coffee table and relax' but that just seems so forced, right?!)

But Remember my birthday when I checked into a hotel, less than 10 miles away from my house, just to get rid off away from my kids for the evening (closing my eyes... thinking of the silent bliss), well with one attached to my boob, that just isn't in the cards for this year. Instead I'm getting a cheap pedicure and doing a little shopping with my Kohl's gift card (that really was a gift for Edy, but don't tell her).

And just so you can join in on the fun, you can go shopping too. One (1) winner will get $50 to spend however you like at CSN. Just leave me a note, maybe a 'Happy 34th Birthday, you ol' hag! or something just as sweet. That's it.

(oh, and be from the US or Canada).

Thanks to CSN for asking me to host once again, you guys are cool like that, though *I* didn't get a present from you guys (i.e. I wasn't compensated or did I receive any product...) like how I inserted that jargon in here. If you aren't a blogger, you can still say 'hi' just leave an email address in your comment. Cool?

confession from the car seat

My babies like to sleep, like a lot. My husband jokes that they waste the first months of life sleeping it away.

People like to ask me what's my 'secret', what kind of advice do I have for them. I'm not one to give out tons of advice. No, I'm not the Baby Whisperer... It's just that I let them sleep in their (insert gasp) car seat. (Please, tell me I'm not the only one.)

(and go ahead, google 'kids sleeping in car seats' - you'll find the phrase bad mommy on the first page.)

but you know what, I've decided with the third child,

I just don't care. I'm not going to worry so much, it always works itself out.

That's my secret.

Even better, that's my *newest* best advice.

*

I was engaged by TheMotherhood.com and AVENT to participate in a talk regarding Motherly Advice, you can find more (inspiring and informative) here. It was fun... thanks for allowing me to be an 'expert' (snicker, snicker...)

just like Windex, only better

Remember the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where her dad was always running around spraying Windex on 'things' that needed fixing like that huge a$$ pimple or that cut on a hand.

Well, Edith had an eye infection (okay... you twisted my arm, here's a picture of her, nearly 2 months old)


and like any good (and logical) mother I googled what an infection could mean, like possible childhood blindness (see, logical) and found out that a lot of people were suggesting squirting your breast milk into her infected eye.

And you know what, it was gone in two days.

Then I was at a festival this weekend showcasing Edy to a friend. (Alright, alright, one more picture.)


(I can hear your ovaries from here, people!)

My friend noticed that Edy scratched herself between the eyes and she leaned over saying 'you know what good for those scratches... breast milk, it will be gone by morning'.

I had no idea that this stuff was so powerful. Way more than liquid gold, I feel like I've got the cure for male patterned baldness, for aching joints, for impotence

(okay, so maybe not impotence).

Got something that ails you, come on over, I'll give you a little squirt of the good stuff ;)

good times

I spent Friday night shopping at Goodwill.

It's depressing. Not that I'm too good for Goodwill, but that I can't fit into any of my pre-pregnancy clothes and I don't want to spend money on a few pair of pants that actually fit. I'm tired of wearing maternity clothes and honestly, I need to give them back to my friend... it's not like I'm the only pregnant person she knows.

I'm sick of cinching up my maternity pants with the two belts that I have that are large enough to make it around my waist so that my butt isn't cracking a smile to those that sit behind me at story time (and the two belts that fit are a leopard printed belt and one that I took from my husband).

It's sad that I eyed the girl in Target with a baby in a car seat perched in her cart. I measured her up and decided that she *must* have had a baby at *least* six months ago to be that stinkin' skinny, then I saw she was buying size one diapers, then she turned around and I knew her. She was from my hippie, multiple-couple birthing classes. We were all due around the same time. Awesome.

There are blogging friends of mine that have had their babies within days of me having Edy. I'm so thankful and happy to have them... that we are going through similar things together, but knowing that they are within a few pounds of being their pre-pregnancy weight sucks.

I remember this black skirt that I wore after having my surrogate son, I zipped it up with ease a week after having him. I remember the only thing exciting about going back to work after having Henry was being able to wear my work clothes again. I tried them all on in this big pile on my bed. I smiled at being able to wear suede and pumps again, even if I was leaving my baby.

I don't want to hear the same thing I heard from my midwife... 'sometimes your body just hangs onto those pounds'... that doesn't help. I don't want to hear about diet and exercise, blah, blah, blah... because if you knew me, you would know that I'm a self-proclaimed gym rat.

Maybe I'm just writing this out to tell you all that I was at Goodwill on Friday night and I got a rockin' Spiderman costume for Wu for $2.99.

WW - caught webs

Straight from the mouth of my preschool - regarding cobwebs:

"Mommy, it's called a caught web. A bug is going to crawl in there and say 'ahh, I'm caught!'."

Now, how come this actually sounds logical?