Dirty Baptism (of sorts)

Last weekend I was shopping at Kohl’s (which is my favorite place to shop for…. well….. anything, oh and everything). For my Canadians, Kohl’s is like shopping at The Bay. Or how shopping at The Bay used to be, just with more sales as everything seems to be at least 50% off when I am there.

So there I was, with V, looking for something to wear to dinner with M to celebrate our 4th anniversary.

I can fit a stroller in the change room AND I had a huge bag of cheesy-poofs for him to occupy himself with.

I must have had a million outfits hanging off the stroller. Some of them were even cheesy-poof free (he has grabby hands)…. (and apparently I am Queen of the brackets tonight).

Off we went to the changing room, poofs and outfits in hand. I strategically maneuvered the stroller until it was in front to the mirror, so V could stare at himself. I figured that this would occupy him, while I pulled things on and off my head…

Off came my tank-top and on went a dress. V was transfixed in the mirror, staring away at himself.

Off went the dress and on went another dress….. V’s little hand was slowly reaching towards the mirror, pointer finger extended with such a charming expression on his face. He looked up towards me in the mirror, with such an excited look on his face….

Off went that dress and on went a skirt and top….. V’s little hands were splayed out on the surface of the mirror. Again, he looked up at me in the mirror and smiled at me….

Off went the skirt and top, and on went another dress…. V’s hands were running up and down the mirror, and I forgot that he had been eating baby cheesey poofs. His hands were wet and covered in poofs and he was smearing them all over the mirror.

I looked at the mirror, and looked at him (and then looked at me in the mirror in that dress….. and didn’t try anything else on). He was ecstatic! I was doubled over trying to silently giggle. The ladies in the changing rooms next to me were loudly critiquing each others outfits in a very New York accenty sort of way. I think it masked my laughter.

The mirror was filthy. A full 1 1/2 foot section covered in smear. Smear which was gluten free!!

I didn’t care!

I bought the dress.

And we left the mirror just like that. Silent homage to my new motherhood?  Baptism of changing room? Mixture of both.

Internal Hotness

My weekly yoga class was tonight, and you know how much I like to share my post-sweaty class thoughts with you.

Tonight the room was extra hot. I didn’t realize this until I glanced at one of the guys in front of me, and noticed that sweat was dripping off of him onto his towel like he had a leaky faucet built into his hip. It was dripping at a steady rate off the corner of his shorts.

Sweat was rolling off of my elbows, my fingers and sliding down my calves at an enormous rate. At one point, it was slowly running from the corners of my eyes and down onto my cheeks. I imagined (while those sweat droplets hung out on my cheekbones) that I was in prison and I had little tattoo tears dripping out of the corner of my eye.

Just trying to illustrate how hard-core I am about yoga (and hoping  you will ignore the fact that I have only been going for a month and a half).

It was awesome.

Sadly though, Spandex man was not there. Actually I haven’t seen him in about 2 weeks. He might have fallen out of love with Bikram. OR he ran out of spandex pants. OR he is actually wearing something else to class and I don’t recognize him because I can no longer see his package in complete and total detail. Probably the last one, eh?

Anyways, the room was so hot that apparently my internal temperature will be higher tomorrow as a result.

Crazy yoga people. I love them all…..

Bats in the cave

Such a charming expression I picked up in Japan from an Englishman…. it always made me laugh. Right now it aptly describes V’s ongoing condition and my latest obsession…. and obsession is the best way I know how to describe it.

Currently we are embroiled in the midst of a nasty cold. So on top of the wheat and peanut issues, we are now dealing with mild asthma and the introduction of a nebulizer. V is on a course of antibiotics for his ear infection and some steroids for the asthma.

The fun never stops at the ‘perfect health’ bus-stop over here!

For those of you not familiar with this phrase, it refers to boogers (visible ones, that is). I am not going to mince words here. And my following details might be a little graphic….mostly about baby boogers, so I think you all (y’all) can handle it.

V’s little nose is so congested and runny right now that the booges are forming a booge barrier just inside his nose. It’s like a beaver dam or something. Stacks and stacks of boogies, drying up and piling on top of each other. And it seems to happen in a matter of minutes. It feels like I just clean up this icky nose, when it happens again.

Clearly the boogers are ganging up on me.

Hence my obsession. And, of course, like all babies, V hates anyone fussing with his nose. And so I have to pin his head in one place while I use a wet wash-cloth (as this is the only way to knock down that beaver-dam) and scrub and scrub and scrub at his boogie nose.

There is crying and hitting (him hitting me, that is), some shrieking as well. It’s so unpleasant. But once it’s done, it’s done. And all is right in the world. V immediately forgets about it, and life is good.

It reached a point this afternoon that was rather ridiculous.

There I was, scrubbing away, V shrieking, me desperately trying to get that last boogie. Finally, I went right in with my fingers and pried that sticky huge thing away from his face.

“Aha!!!”, I exclaimed, “Gotcha!” and I held it triumphantly up in the air in our dining-room, like it was the Holy Grail or the Sword in the Stone or some other monstrously important artifact.

Yes, that’s right, I am indeed a booger archeologist.

Going where no man (but plenty of mummies, I imagine) has gone before.

M mumbled “Good job” from the living-room while he played wrestling on our PS3. Clearly he was not impressed by my ‘score’.

Anyways, then I realized that I had a booger on my finger (and one that wasn’t mine) and quickly went over to the sink and washed it off.

Again, ahhh motherhood…..

How to Daddy

My husband and I do things completely different. Cooking, (diapering obviously), cleaning and parenting. I am sure it is the same in every relationship whether children are involved or not.

When M has ‘Daddy-duty’, which is a few nights a week while I do things like go to yoga or go running, all bets are off. And I mean all bets….

Feeding V does not require a bib. Ever.

Because “Bibs are for babies and we are real men”… and that is practically a quote.

It makes me laugh every time he says it. However, squash, sweet potato and pea stains on his crib sheets from vegetables on his pj’s? *sigh*

V’s bath-time becomes a water battle-ground. At least 6 wash-cloths get used to clean that little plump body. And at at least 3 towels are used to dry it. (mini-secret: I hate laundry)

Everything is done in this super-jocular voice, which is really rather funny.

The other night I heard him reading to V, and it was the cutest thing. One of those ‘Bright Babys’ board books. Lots of brightly coloured pictures of animals, with the word below the picture.

So I heard things like this….

“Look! It’s a lion! Rawr!!!”

“A baby chicken says ‘Peep peep!'”

“A macaw! What the heck is that doing in this book?”

“A guinea pig! That’s what we test!”

I did a double take at the baby monitor when I heard the last….. it made me giggle.

V was having the time of his life, listening to Daddy read him stories. And then in the middle of all this fun, Daddy shouted in a jolly kind of manner  “All aboard the sleepy train!”. And put V to bed.

Just like that.

I think V was in shock. Usually there is some rocking, some cuddling, big kisses and some sweet talk before bed with Mummy. With Daddy, however, there is none of that. Just straight to bed.

It just struck me as funny.

Fisting (my diaper genie)

Have you ever had to fist a diaper genie?

Welcome to my morning.

I wake up at 5:20 every morning during the week. This morning V woke up roughly around the same time, and when I went in to get him up he was waiting for me. With soaking-wet pants.

Not just a wet diaper, but wet all the way through pj’s too. And after I took his pj bottoms off on the changing table and prepared to do battle with his diaper, I realized the reason. My husband was the reason. And probably will continue to be the reason. Until V is out of diapers that is….

M is perhaps not the most skilled at diaper changing. I might have mentioned this before. It was barely on, so no wonder that he was soaked. SOAKED.

Pants were off and I was getting ready to clean him up and I reached into the wipes warmer (yes, I have one. A result of 1 consistent week of crying every time I wiped a dirty bum with a cold wipe.) and found that it was completely empty!

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!”, is what I shouted out in V’s bedroom. V smiled and giggled at me while I shouted. M didn’t hear anything, he was in the shower.

I slowly backed away from V, my eyes locked on his as he kicked his legs on the changing table (I know ‘they’ say not to do that, but let’s face it, it happens), and backed into his closet where the refills were. (note to self: keep back-up at near crib as M is unreliable)

So he got wiped down, clean diaper, clean pj’s and I went to put the diaper in the diaper genie and that’s when I discovered that it was completely full.

And it smelled.

Mostly it was just totally full though. And that’s when my fisting skills came into play. Bet you haven’t heard that phrase outside of a porno before, eh?

Fisting a diaper genie is where you fist punch the stack of stinky diapers down to make room for ‘just one more’.

Awesome. Sometimes I wonder, am I the only one doing things like this?? Surely I am not the only with mad fisting skills?

Or am I?

Lord only knows…. and I could care less. If I can fit one more in there by using my fist, then I will.

Ah, motherhood….

click here to learn about Diaper Genies and how they work (perhaps this is a video for the very stupid?)

click here to see an actual diaper genie

click here to see a bacon genie (best invention ever? Perhaps…)

and click here to see the slipper genie….

Yoga-a-go-go

My mind is blank after yoga.

Bendy and foldy.

Thirsty.

Spandex-man was not there. I feel disappointed.

Tired.

Bed.

Tan

Little snapshot of Florida…

Today, while M and I were waiting in our car to make a right turn I glanced across the street where there was a Walgreens.

In the parking-lot there appeared to be a fancy white convertible car and two highly tanned people were standing next to it, partially obscured by the bushes that surrounding the lot.

Mrs Tan was lubing up Mr Tan. Not in kind of way, you sickos.

Literally, I mean.

She was actually spreading sunscreen on him in the parking-lot. Smearing it all over his upper body (why was he shirtless at a Walgreen’s?) and his neck, head and face.

I was fascinated by this. Luckily, we were stuck at this light for a while and I could just keep staring.

She did his whole upper body (from what I could see over the bushes anyways). In the parking-lot. “M, what is she putting on his face?! Sunscreen?”. In the parking-lot of a Walgreen’s.

Which for my Canadian readers out there is like lubing up your half-naked body outside of  Shoppers, in Sidney kind of over by the liquor store, in that little plaza in the handicap parking spot…

Already they were the colour of mahogany. Leathery skin so leathery you could see it across an intersection of a 6-lane road, through bushes and through a parking-lot. Thank god they decided to use some ‘screen’. Lord only knows where this would have gone.

Ahhhh, Florida….

Anniversary

In one week, Mike and I will have been married for 4 years. In honour of our anniversary I am actually using his real name, but probably I will continue to call him ‘M’ in upcoming posts.

4 years is a big deal to me.

1 year away from 5 which feels like a huge landmark.

Almost 1 year since Vincent was born and we ate French food for our 3rd anniversay at a restaurant who’s slogan is ‘Bon appetite, y’all!”.

6 1/2 years since we have been together in total.

3 years since I moved to Florida.

Almost 3 years since my 30th birthday, when I ate amazing sushi and then got super drunk at a downtown bar and made an ass out of myself (as I have been known to do).

4 1/2 years since we left Japan. Holy. Moly.

8 years since I graduated from University with a degree that I don’t really use. My dream job was organizing exhibits for museums. Any museum. Well, maybe not a bug museum or something like that…..

11 years since I went dancing for the first time. Yes, thats right. I didn’t dance until I was 22. Just too wholesome, I guess…..

15 years since I graduated from High School. Which means that my 20 year reunion is coming up in the next few years. Interesting.

1 month since I started Bikram yoga. And 1 month since I started feeling more relaxed.

10 months since Vincent was born. And about 6 hours since I seriously started thinking about how much he would like a little sister (a sister, I might add, whose name has been picked out for about 6 months).

12 hours since I realized that I do indeed have Mike’s cold. Damn.

And about 2 minutes since I also realized that I should be in bed….

True story (creepy post-script)

I woke up at 12:30 last night…. V has a little cold and was a bit congested and as a result he woke up crying a few times.

12: 30 was one of them.

As I rolled out of bed and started making my way down the hall I noticed that the toy bin was flashing. I leaned over to peek in and all of the lights on the telephone were flashing.

AND it was talking.

I swear to god it said “Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop…”

I carried it out of my bedroom by the plastic anntenae with the sounds of my son crying and the telephone repeating “Stop stop stop” mingling together

I deposited it on the kitchen table and will have Mike take it out with the trash when he leaves for work this afternoon. I can’t handle the creepy vibe anymore….

Creepy

I have a little toy basket in our bedroom for the odd toys that end up in our room.  I think currently there is a plushie fish, a bear and a plastic telephone.

The telephone has little pictures on the buttons and talks when you push them.

“Car”

“Baby”

“Cup”

And in spanish too!

It makes animals noises too. It meows and barks and growls. V loves it and gnaws away on it, pushing the buttons with his face and teeth.

I think it’s been in the bedroom for about a week or so. Last weekend it started meowing during the night. Woke me right out of a dead sleep.

I lay there, half awake wondering what on earth I had heard that had woke me up. I am such a light sleeper since V entered our life, I wake up at a heavy sigh.

Anyways, it meowed. Repeatedly. Often enough that I remembered it in the morning. I turned it off sometime during the night and thought that was the end of it.

The other night I noticed a dull light emanating from the toy bin. With a closer look, I realized that it was the telephone. One of the buttons was lit up. The one that has a picture of a baby on it. And the power was off.

And then it started meowing again. I ignored it. It happened with less frequency. I forgot.

And then last night it meowed again.

What the heck? I mean seriously!! I turned it off! It is off! OFF! Why is it still meowing!

Clearly it is possessed. It is some kind of Stephen King-cat possessed telephone. Our apartment complex must be built over a pet cemetary or something. (Thanks Shannon for your cat-possessed phone!)

And yet after a week and a half of this meowing telephone…. it is still in our bedroom. Too much work to move it.