Living by a new set of rules

1uwe9mNothing makes sense anymore. In my old, pre-baby life, if someone asked me for waffles, I’d make them waffles and we’d be good. Now if the child asks for waffles, I end up with screams of despair and cold waffles and I’m still not really sure where I went wrong. I’ve given up trying to figure it out. The only thing I know is, there is a new set of rules, and I’m not the one making them.

Top 10 Toddler Rules for Parents (especially those of crazy little boys)

1) Never let your guard down. The moment you do you get beaned in the head with something. Probably something hard.

2) Don’t look away. Because when you turn back around they are probably already hanging off a window ledge.

3) Don’t invest in whatever they eat at someone else’s house. Because when you get home they’ll hate it. And then you have five boxes of fruit bars they keep trying to feed to the dog.

4) Don’t invest in what they like today at your own house either because tomorrow they will most likely hate it, and by now the dog is getting pretty fat.

5) Diaper-free time means I’m cleaning pee up off the floor time.

6) There’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything. The right way is that one way you did it the first time three weeks ago. The wrong way is however you are trying to do it now, so you get an extended tantrum for your failure to remember to do it the right way.

7) There is a specific tiny car for every activity or outing. Also, you will need about 5,679 hot wheels cars to get through toddlerhood.

8) If there is a puddle, they will find it. If there is dirt, they will find it. If there is both, you might as well just camp out for a while.

9) They can be the worst little hellion ever and wipe it away with a hug, a kiss and a sweet little baby voiced “I love you.” And they know it.

10) They are going to steal your heart and one day you’ll miss the puddles and tiny cars and insistence on being carried everywhere. Toddlerhood doesn’t last forever. Just cover your ears keep repeating that during the next screamfest that erupts because you won’t let them lick the light socket.

Geeky Guest Post: D is for Dark Knight

Welcome to the first installment of Geeky Guest Posts! Because everyone can relate to a geeky something.

This one is a repost from Erika of DorkyMomDoodles.com, who’s daughter obviously has a healthy love of the geeky side of life:

Some toddler girls love Princess Sophia. Others love Doc McStuffins. Others — namely the ones whose moms have to Google characters that toddler girls are into — love Batman. And Superman. And all things Star Wars. (Sigh, and as of the last couple months or so, Peppa Pig.) But mainly Batman.
So, yeah, Baby Girl loves her some Dark Knight. Her love is so intense that some might even say that Baby Girl has a minor obsession with him. Others might say that there’d be a restraining order against her if Batman actually existed.

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I can’t remember exactly when the lovefest started, but it was sometime between her first and second birthday. Her brother has a couple of Batman play sets, and she loves playing with the toys alongside Little Man. Baby Girl went through a phase where she refused to wear anything but her Batman t-shirts, wanted to wear the Batman pajamas every night, and had to carry her Batman stuffie everywhere. She had a Batman themed party for her birthday last year, too.
With the theme for this post in mind, I was scrolling through old Facebook and blog posts looking for some material for today and came across a few cute things.

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The first one shows her getting her teeth brushed while wearing a Batman mask. She hates getting her teeth brushed. It’s one of those things that always ends up in a meltdown of epic proportions, no matter what we do. But then one night we put a Batman mask on her to so we could show her that superheroes brush their teeth, too.
It worked. For one night, we had an adorable Batman toddler getting her teeth brushed in our bathroom. For one night, because I don’t know where that particular mask is anymore.
The second shows Baby Girl not showing me any love on my birthday. Sigh. I know that Batman’s fond of making everything about him, but on my birthday, too? C’mon, man.
The third one shows how Baby Girl introduced herself a few times. Loads of cuteness if you witness it in person.
The fourth doodle shows that Baby Girl has some real game when it comes to getting sweets from her daddy. Rather than ask for an ice cream cone herself (and likely be denied), she asked for one for Batman. And she got it. She claimed that they were sharing it, but I do have my doubts.

So…Team Batman or Team Superman? 

You can connect with Dorky Mom Doodles on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and see her original post here: #AtoZChallenge: D is for Dark Knight

 

 

Our First Day of Preschool was AWESOME

We started the first day like so many do – with a photo and a sign:

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I told myself “Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” as I helped him get settled in and hang up his tote bag. He was growing up so fast!

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And as I kissed him by, I realized I had 4 hours ahead of me to do whatever I wanted. However I wanted. Whenever I wanted. So first I went and got a pedicure.

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Then I went shopping! I wandered the aisles slowly and got to stop and look at whatever I wanted. It was glorious.

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Then I took myself to lunch. I ate slowly and actually got to taste my food. I didn’t even have to share. It was a lovely lunch.

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And then I went home and took a nap.

#BestDayEver

 

Things that sounded like a good idea after wine

A funny thing happens after a couple glasses of wine. While I normally try to maintain a “can-do attitude,” my can-do becomes multiplied into “I’m an expert” proportions. Combining that with checking e-mail or cruising Facebook and it sometimes results in things I may questions the next day.

Like the time I got myself a promotions job that included driving a cargo van. I didn’t even know what exactly a cargo van was, but I figured it’s a vehicle, I can drive it. In case you haven’t tried to drive one, cargo vans are quite large and have no back windows so you need to use the mirrors a lot and they are hard as hell to drive through the crazy streets of downtown San Francisco, which is where I lived that the time. And then there was the time I was like, “sure, I speak Spanish,” and found myself working for Bacardi in Cancun for two months. Luckily, it was spring break and I think everyone was too drunk to notice my limited vocabulary.

My latest wine enhanced sentiment is that my kid and I are yoga buddies. I saw a post from YogaBabyClothing.com about collaborating with bloggers and I immediately was like, oh we are so perfect for this! I must have blocked out the last time my son went to yoga on the beach with me and pretty much just covered me in the sand the whole time.

img_5148In my mind, I’m picturing him in the adorable Yoga Baby clothes, doing a sun salutation alongside me while someone snaps amazing pics for my Instagram.

But here’s the real truth:

Me: You want to do yoga with mommy?

K: Yogurt?

Me: No, YOGA. (does some demonstration) Stretching!

K: Yogurt? Yogurt!

Me: Yooooooooooooga (again with demo)

K: Yogurt! Yogurt! Yogurt!

Me: *sigh* (spends next 20 minutes feeding him yogurt)

So we are still working on this yoga thing. And I’m sure I’ll continue to blow my abilities out of proportion now and then. I will say that I did learn to drive that van pretty well and my Spanish can get me by in a pinch, so sometimes it is good to put yourself out on a limb. But I’ll have to hold off on baby yoga clothes until my baby agrees to participate for more than 10 seconds. But if you happen to have a tiny yoga lover, Yoga Baby did share this handy promo code: freeshipping (it’s self explanatory). So if your child is more cooperative than mine, maybe you can do beautifully outfitted yoga things together and I can admire your Instagram pics instead.

 

 

 

 

My Blond Ambition

img_5468My first VoxBox arrived from Influenster and I was pretty excited to get to try out the Schwarzkopf Professional BLONDME tone enhancing shampoo and conditioner mask for free. This is a combo product review and regular blog post, because I actually already had this “Blond Ambition” post in my drafts just waiting to be finished so I figured, why not combine them?

I’m usually excited to try anything for free, but currently my blond needs some help so this was just what I needed. Since I went SAHM, I have not gotten within 20 feet of a salon and only then because I was driving past it.

I’m just going to confess right now and tell you all I was not born blond. In fact, I was so un-blond that I had a full head of nearly black hair. I’ve always felt this was a terrible mistake. Like, maybe somebody switched my hair follicles at birth. My hair continues to disappoint me by growing out of my head several shades darker than I desire, so of course I turned to the bottle at an early age. The bottle of Sun-In, of course.

As soon as I discovered this “natural” way of going blond I soaked my hair daily and fried myself in the sun all summer. I was rewarded with a brittle mess of very brassy blond strands and got to tell everyone honestly, “the sun did this.”

I later moved on to the salon, and spent my son’s last day of daycare at the salon getting highlights, lowlights and all the lights in between because I knew it would be the last time I saw the salon for a looooooong time. Stay-at-home-moms do not get the luxury of 4 hour salon visits.

So now I am tackling these dark roots with some fancy Miss Clairol from Sally’s Beauty Supply. And I’ve been wanting to go a little darker blond so of course that translates into “orange.” So back to my free sample stuff. I liked it! But, I am a fan of the purple shampoo products in general. I felt like the products toned down the brassiness and darkened the blond a little, while making the lighter blonds stand out a little more. I probably would have been super impressed if I’d never tried a purple toning product before. But I was very happy with the results. And the hair mask was conditioning enough that I didn’t have to follow-up with my favorite conditioner. I have curly wavy weird hair that just turns into dreads if I don’t use a good conditioner. I think every blond needs some kind of toning shampoo/conditioner to brighten things up every now and then and these products did a nice job. They are a bit on the pricey side for me right now as this SAHM gig doesn’t pay well, so I wouldn’t use them as my every day product but more like a weekly blond refresher.

And one day, after pre-school starts, I’ll get to visit a salon again. I’m hoping they can give me the most perfect blond I’ve ever seen…the color growing out of my son’s head (I produced a true blond so I think that grandfathers me in, right? Lol)