Friday, December 19, 2008

Scrooge You

This morning I set out to met my girls for bagels and coffee at Panera.

It was one of those mornings where nothing went right.

Ryker was in a mood. He didn't seem to mind the gut-wrenching stench coming from his diaper and threw a holy-hell fit when I dried to change him. Poo and tantrums don't mix... just ask the wall by the changing table and the lovely red shirt I had intended to wear today.

When I finally de-pooed the wall and myself and went downstairs, I tried to feed him some breakfast, knowing all-to-well that he wouldn't touch anything at Panera. Evidently bananas and yogurt weren't on the Prince's menu today... they were however all over my floor and table.

So I gave up on getting some food into the little brat's body and start packing things up to go "bye-bye".

And so ensues another tantrum. "Noooooooooooo bye-bye.........nooooooooooooooooo bye-bye. Noooooooooooooo shoe..........nooooooooooooooooooooo shoe!"

I am not sure at what point my son learned to speak so well, but it certainly coincides with his newly found independence and defiance. And oh, what a wonderful thing it is. Welcome to the terrible two's... about four months early.

So here I am, fighting with this little monster, trying to get shoes and a coat on him. All the while I am breaking into a sweat in the last-minute-sweater I had to change into. And mid-tantrum, he throws himself down and cracks his head. And in a wonderful mommy-moment, my reaction is.... "Serves you right son."

I scoop him up and strap him in the car. Great, now I'm late. I hate being late. It makes me twitch. And sweat. Even more.

And of course one of my girl's sends me a text to get my butt to Panera... dammit.. that girl knows how slow I am at texting. And not a good idea while driving... and twitching... and sweating.

Finally we arrive. And Ryker is in full-on bad ass mode. He won't sit, he won't eat... except for the few moments he eats raspberry cream cheese by the fist full right out of the container. He is harassing some poor man sitting by the fire quietly working away on his laptop.

I can't concentrate on the conversation. And damn its hot in Panera. Still sweating.

I am about to excuse myself from my friends and strangle my son, when some lovely good-Samaritan mom offers up some fruit snacks that finally shut the little man up for a full five minutes.

And then he is off and running again. He heads back over towards the fireplace, where another man is sitting, reading the paper. I immediately go retrieve him, hoping not to interrupt anyone else's quiet time and apologize to the two men...

"I'm sorry, we will be leaving soon."

And the newspaper-reading man's response, "Can't be soon enough for me."

Can you see the dumb-founded look on my face? Excuse me? I was trying to be nice. I'm ready to have a nervous breakdown trying to keep up with this beast and here I am apologizing and you want to be an ass? Haven't you had kids? Or grandkids? Is this not a public establishment where EVERYONE, no matter their level of good behavior is welcomed?

Scrooge you bastard. Merry f*cking Christmas.

And in the words of one of my lovely girlfriends, "You want peace and quite, go to Starbucks asshole."

(I may have added the asshole to her quote, but the sentiment was definitely there!)

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Sleeping In...

This morning my son blessed me. He didn't wake up at his typical 6:45 - butt-crack-of-dawn hour.

And I got to sleep in. For the first time in I don't know how long.

Well, a modified version of sleeping in. I still had to get up at 7am and feed the three other kiddies and make sure they had lunches and teacher's presents (which ofcourse one of them left behind their packages).

But at 7:25 when I sent them out the door, Prince Ryker was still snoozing. So I timidly crawled back in bed, well-knowing that the sound of my head hitting the pillow would surely arise the sleeping beast.

And still he slept... so I dozed. Awoken once again only a few minutes later to my husband getting ready for work. And then again at 8:30 to a telemarketing phone call trying to sell me satellite service (um, no f*cking thanks, I'll be going back to bed now).

And then at about 9:10, I began to hear the prehistoric calls of my teradactyl son.

"Maaaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...................Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I TUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK"

translation: "Mama, Mama, I'm stuck" and I go into his room to see his chubby little feet stuffed through the rails of his crib and he is most definitely stuck. Again. Third time this week.

So although I didn't actually get to sleep all the way until the late late hour of 9am... spending the extra time in bed was so lovely. So refreshing in fact, I might just go sneak in a 20 minute nap while Ryker is power-napping to ready himself for his evening!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Why God Invented Camera Phones...

Ok... so he really didn't and I am sure there are many many more things we have to be thankful for... but tonight it is the camera phone.

Tonight the camera phone enabled us to capture the "Dancing Drunk Lady" as we ventured out to celebrate Christen's birthday. After dinner, Christen, Tracy, her friend Misti and myself all headed over to the bar to finish out the night.

And there she was. From the time we walked in, until we left after midnight. Dancing away. In her own little world. Occassionaly she would hold up her lighter. Sometimes it was her thumbs in an odd sort of dance.

There are very few people I have seen dancing in bars who actually should be dancing. She was definitely not one of those people. But I think it would be nice to spend a few moments in her oblvious little world, dancing off beat and singing the wrong songs, and not giving a damn what anybody is thinking in a full bar where NO ONE is dancing.

Me on the other hand, I would rather spend my evening in the bar making fun of the "Dancing Drunk Lady" and luckily I shared company with some fantastic ladies that are on the same page as me. Because you better believe had one of my girls started dancing - I'd whipped out that camera phone and posted their video!!


(Pardon the shakey video - I think TG may have had one too many!)

Sunday, December 7, 2008

She Does Exist!

Has it really been almost a month since I posted anything?!?!

I knew I was slacking, but I had no idea I was this bad. That was until I started getting emails and phone calls from my few faithful followers asking what the hell was wrong with me? They would no longer check my blog daily and would in turn remove themselves from my pitiful little list of followers unless I posted something soon.

You love me, you really love me :) And here I thought no one would really miss my pointless little old ramblings.

Well here is to my followers.... few as you may be.

I've actually got a lot to chat about too... hang on ladies (and gentleman)... you might be here for a while.

Thanksgiving..

I was so excited this year to host Thanksgiving in our new house. I busted ass for the entire week before decorating the house and cleaning every nook and crannie. I conquered my inability to make a wire-ribboned bow by buying a Bow-Dabra (shameless, I know... but I got some booti-ful bows now).
In the end, I pulled it all off... the house looked gorgeous, dinner was fantastic and the company was great. We had alot to be thankful for this year, and the consensus around the dinner table was all a huge thanks for "Family".

So as the men retired to attempt to keep their eyelids open long enough to see a play or two of football... my sister and I hit the sale ads preparing ourselves for Black Friday.

So who is crazy enough to actually go out on Black Friday and brave the mobs and life-threatening stampedes to save $4 on the latest gadget? Me. Me. Me. And my bestest girlfriend... and for the last couple of years we have drug our booties out of bed at an insane hour and hit the stores. Last year... faithful, committed shopper that I am... I did it with an 8 month old and 6 year old. Brave, I know. Although some would just say crazy.

But this year I was sans kids and my sister, who was a Black Friday virgin, decide to join in the fun. So Thanksgiving night we sat down to map out our route and get a game plan in mind. And then, to our surprise we ran across a couple of ads from stores that were open on Thanksgiving!!

OOOOOOOOOOH! Let the fun begin - my sister and I ran out of the house at 6:30 in a furry trying to make it to Big Lots that closed at 8pm and Kmart that closed at 9pm. We call this "pregaming" in the shopping addicts world.

So Thanksgiving night we closed down Big Lots, and then Kmart... and then at 9pm we still weren't fulfilled... so we hit Super Walmart... whose wonderful doors never close. At 11:30 we were back home... just in time for a few hours power nap before we had to get up again.

At 2:30 my alarm went off. I realized at that moment that I had a serious problem. That no one should rise at 2:30 in the morning to shop. That no sale could be that good to get up this damn early. But I got up anyways... arose my sleeping, grumpy sister and we were out of the door by 3am.

We were headed to Northern Virginia.... to hit the Mecca of all shopping... Potomac Mills. We met up with my bestest bud and so our day began. At an hour most were still snug in their beds dreaming of sugar plums... we were elbowing fellow shoppers for MP3 players and Hannah Montana barbies.

It was insane and nonstop. Walmart was the worst. We got there about 6am, only an hour after they opened and you could barely move in the store. It took us almost 20 minutes just to get the cart into the front door. We stood in line to check out, with two heaping carts for almost 45 minutes before some kindly Black Friday angel let us in on a secret fast-paced line. In a mission that rivaled 007.... I scoped out the line first, to make sure it was legit... then I called in for one cart at a time. My sister came first with her cart... and then after we were certain this was a real line and someone wasn't going to tell us to get lost and send us to the very back... we called in for our second cart. And in 10 minutes, we were through the line and out of the store. Everytime a checkout register rings... a Black Friday Angel gets her wings. Bless our Black Friday Angel.

We only took a few short breaks for food. By 1pm our stomachs were ready to eat themselves, so we thought it best to take a short hiatus for lunch. After that we headed back to the mall and cruised through the crowds. We had so many bags that we grabbed a Costco shopping cart (you know how gi-normous thouse things are) and proceeded to push it around the mall. By the time our evening was over, the cart was full and the back of my van was bulging.




I am still not quite sure of everything I got. It is all such a blur. And I am writing about this now, because I honestly think it took me a full week to recover from our marathon shopping day. We started our day at 2:30am and I didn't get home until almost 11pm. I had to get up and go to the work the next day and was virtually useless. I was so exhausted I couldn't see straight.

But it was great. It was exciting. It will be happening again next year. And my sister is now officially a Black Friday whore!! Check out her stash -




And so now this week I am fighting off the Black Friday funk... I have the cold from hell that I swear came from touching too many germy shopping carts. My hypothesis has proven true because sister has got the same funk too!

It's worth it though. All my shopping was done in one swoop... even if it did take 18 hours worth of shopping to get it done! Anyone want to join in on the insanity next year?!?