Fabulous Miss S.

Capitalism at its worst

I am really ready for this election to be over. Like, REALLY ready.  I don't want to hear any more about Sarah Palin's clothes and how much they cost or how much Barack Obama misses his mama and wishes she had had better health care.  I get it. I know the differences.  I'm a liberal, there really wasn't much question of who I'd be voting for anyway.  But, as most things American end up - this election has gotten over done.  Burned to a hockey-puck, crispy with trans-fat OVERDONE.

Tonight while I was pumping gas I saw this sign above the gas pump.  Must we commercialize and monetize EVERYTHING?

Confessions of a Halloween Hater

Can I tell you something?  Come closer.  Okay, now, please don't laugh at me or tell anyone I said this but: I don't like Halloween.  I hate it really.  I think it's a meaningless excuse to eat junk food and we all know I never need an excuse to eat.  I just don't get it.  The fake cobwebs, the skeleton lawn ornaments, the pumpkin-shaped lights hanging outside my neighbor's front door?  It just seems unnecessary, really.

Neighbors and other parents have excitedly asked me what Noah will be for Halloween and I just sort of stare back at them and tell them we haven't decided yet except that I did decide when I graciously accepted a rooster costume from my neighbor as a loaner. I may despise this thing we are "celebrating" later this week but I am careful to make sure Noah participate in mainstream culture even his if his mother is a dorktastic party-pooping LOSER.  There was no way I was going to spend thirty dollars on a costume Noah would hatefully wear for twenty minutes and never remember.  I know, call me Scrooge!

I don't mind buying candy and giving it out to all the kids, in fact, I quite like this part.  I just don't like the participating myself, I'd so much rather let the kids have this one. I grew up in a rural area and there wasn't much of a community feel so I never had much of a trick-or-treating experience. 

When Noah is older of course I'll get excited with him and help him select a costume but this year he is only ten months old. He doesn't know what is going on, why must I subject him to this ordeal?  I think he looks perfectly adorable each and every day without a costume that hinders his movements and falls in front of his eyes. 

I don't know when my dislike of this distinctively American holiday came about but I suspect it wasn't long after my dad (Love you, Dad!) told me to dress up as a ROAD one year during the acne-riddled pleasantness that was middle school.  As if the braces, greasy hair and general awkwardness weren't enough of a scare I had to wear all black and walk around with a yellow crepe paper line down my lumpy-pubescent body.  In my current state of adultness I find this costume idea to be rather amusing and easy to assemble (read: successful) but when I had to explain a gigillion times that day what I was dressed as the novelty quickly wore away as my black turtleneck choked me with loathsome self-consciousness.

 

I will admit, this kind of cuteness does make me want to eat candy. Or at least lick this sweet child. He's more dietetic than peanut butter cups.

Traverse me to the wine, please

I really lived this weekend, ya'll! I drank wine two nights in a row and I wasn't alone or in the bathtub with the latest copy of People Magazine.

Friday night I got myself all dolled up with actual eyeliner and heels to go spend a few hours with the great women of DC Metro Moms. We arrived in a Chevy Traverse and began our night of living like ladies of leisure. Partying leisure. 

I met some amazing women and put faces with names and smiles with blog titles.  I was afraid I would be nervous about stepping out from behind the laptop screen but it really wasn't an issue at all.  Regardless of whether we are carrying a Coach or a Liz Claiborne purse, wearing size four designer jeans or a maternity tent, teenagers or infants at home, we all support each other in the same goal.  We are mothers and bloggers and writers.  I am really thrilled to be a part of this great bunch of gals who really KNOW how to party.  Did I mention that already?

My Saturday night was more subdued, my neighbor came over and we ate chocolate cream pie and drank some Cabernet. 

Of course I forgot my camera and I don't have a picture of myself all put together and I really regret that. Sorry!  I wore a red shirt and black jeans - picture it!

EDITED TO ADD:
Diana did a better job explaining this party than I did. So did Jodi  who drove our Traverse with Mary and Lindsey. I talked to Amie, Nicole, our awesome party planner and Kim.  I wish I had spent more time getting to know Gayle, Fergie, KC and Robin. I know I'm leaving out a few people but I'm sure we'll catch up at the next wine-soaked party.

Don't eat off my floors

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours I have had to sit on top of Noah in order to change a stewing stench-filled poop diaper and also for the second time there was POOP ON THE FLOOR.

I heard a vague mention awhile back that someone had an eight month old baby who she had to wrestle with to accomplish a diaper change and I was all wave-of-the-hand that won't happen to me my child likes having his diaper changed and I am the perfect mother and OH how naive am I?!

And then Noah turned eight months old, and then nine and most recently four days ago he became ten months old.  I dread diaper changes.  He fights me every second and at every turn, literally. I lay him down and he immediately flips over before I can even get his pants off.  If he just has a wet diaper I whisk it off and let him crawl away as naked as the day he was born because he prefers to be that way and who am I to interfere with the way God intended us?  In fact, I do interfere because it is cold outside and he lacks control over certain functions that have left many a wet stain on my walls, carpets, clothing and floors. 

In the past day I have needed to change a particularly unpleasant diaper twice and I had to lay him on the floor and use my left leg to hold down his chest and I feared for a split second that this was possible child abuse.  Because I had to really hold him down.  He screamed and twisted and I grabbed wipe upon wipe but as I moved in to clean the poop-covered regions he squirmed and whoops! poop on the legs! Each time his jerky thrashy body complicated yet another diaper change, the result was a massive wash-down of my hands and the carpet around us because the poop-covered regions really just expanded with each wiping that should have resulted in a  consolidate and remove effort if you know what I mean and I think you do.

How long will this last? Sometimes I can distract him with a toy or sippee cup or something to keep him a little more still but nothing works as well as Valium in his yogurt.*  Any ideas folks?

* Kidding. I would never.

 

Baby; Boobs; Rooster

Not that you have missed me but if you did, I've been trying to spend more time lately actually sitting on the floor playing with Noah.  He's getting more and more mobile, even cruising now and he'll often just crawl away from me and into the other room so that he can repeatedly open and close the door of the dog's crate all while laughing at himself.  And when it gets awkwardly quiet I run into the other room and he'll be sitting there smiling back at me. So the reason this blog has been lacking a bit lately is because of him. I'm enjoying him more and more each day as he gets more interactive and more engaged in play and the world around him.  I spend all day everyday with him and then when I put him to bed at night I get that same nagging feeling of missing him.  I wonder, as a parent, do you ever feel like you've hugged them enough? Can you love them enough?  I don't think it is possible. I do try though to hold onto him for one extra minute, one extra inhale of his head and neck each night before I excitedly lay him in his crib and PRAY for a full night of interrupted sleep.

 

In other baby-related news, (gah, is this a boring mommyblog or what?) he hasn't been sleeping so well for the past week, er, the past four night specifically I have been awake many times sitting with him and nursing him and putting him gently back into his crib only to have him wake up, stand up and start screaming just as I've taken my hand off of the door-knob and made that soft-toe pivot to return to MY OWN BED.  It got so bad that I finally broke my own he-stays-in-his-crib-while-it's-dark-out rule so that I could get a little damn sleep myself thank you.  And I did. For about two hours and then he needed to roll over and realized HEY! BOOBS! I think I'll have some!  I imagine it's something like if I tapped Marc's shoulder in the night and delicately spooned him a hot-fudge sundae while his head nested sleepily and softly in my cleavage.  You'd be a fool to turn that down, know what I'm sayin'?

Meanwhile, four nights of constant wee-morning hour nursing and I'm a tad bit on the FULL side if you know what I mean.

Also: TIRED.

::

Ahem! Enough about my boobs already, in other news I have completed the 30-Day Shred Level 3 now twice.  It was hard. I won't lie to you.  But honestly, I think Level 2 is the most difficult.  I imagine it is possible, albeit highly unlikely that I have gained enough muscle so that this new level doesn't SEEM difficult but really, Level 1 and Level 2 are very focused on muscle and strength building while Level 3 is really about stamina and jacking up your metabolism.  

Clearly all I have is exercise what with this hateful candy holiday we have coming up in a week or so, I don't even know. Marc's mother sent Noah a nice little Halloween package full of random toys and included a bag of Candy Corn Hershey Kisses which she KNOWS were not intended for Noah so I have been sitting here eating them all night.  Shit.

::

I took Noah to a little kids party last week that had a Halloween flair to it.  Kids wear costumes, get chocolate all over themselves, you know.... this costume is a loaner but we think Noah did well.  (It's a loaner because I am against buying a costume for a ten month old who doesn't know what is going on and will just get really uncomfortable and irritable in it anyway.) For a great idea of above suggested irritability, examine this evidence below.