Here's to finding a nice man

My two year old cracks me up. I am a sarcastic person by nature. My father before me is as well. We feel it's a gift. Sometimes I'm funny, sometimes not so much, but I always have some kind of funny thought in my head. My 2 year old seems to have inheritted this trait from me. And thank God for that. I love my husband, but he's a little too literal at times and my sense of humor is lost on him. But, Sabrina? This girl is going to be FUNNY! For the past couple of weeks she has woken up with a crusty, glazed donut monster (thank you Bill Cosby) nose because of the sniffles. In order to distract her while I de-glaze I say funny things like, "Who brought you all these boogies? The Boogey Man??" She laughs and doesn't scream while I fix her face. The other morning she woke up with a clean nose (YAY), but a huge knot in her hair. Again, I try to distract her while I get it out. "Who brought this knot for you??" She says, "The Boozshy (love how she says that) Man." I say, "What? He leaves your nose alone but now he has to mess up your hair? That Boozshy Man is not a nice man is he?" She says, "No, he's not. Mommy-I need a nice man." She's a natural.

I'll trade ya Christmas

I was watching my TiVo'd Oprah today (or Aunt Oprah as my daughter and I like to call her) and it was the episode from the other day where she featured ways to save money. A couple of girlfriends were on there and each of them wanted to redo their living rooms, but couldn't afford it because both of their husbands work in housing construction and business is slow. So they traded furniture and redecorated that way. And with that I had my light bulb moment, as Aunto Oprah likes to say. Why couldn't we do this for Christmas? I have a good amount of people on my Christmas list, many of those are kids and small ones at that. I'm always looking to save on the gifts for this time of year. My daughter was born in November and I wanted to rewrap some of her birthday gifts for Christmas the month later after her 1st birthday. She was only one-she would never have known and we all know that one year olds only like the boxes and paper anyway. My husband didn't go for it. So I sent the e-mails to see if I get any takers. Let's trade toys!!

Decisions, decisions, decisions

Presidential debate or The Real Housewives of Atlanta...I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WATCH!!! Phew....Real Housewives is on again at 11. On to the debate. Just a warning though...if I hear the word "maverick" one time, JUST ONE FREAKIN' TIME, I may stroke out.

Cheerleading

I went to my nephews' football game yesterday. I am able to get to about 2 games a season and love watching how good they are getting. They are 8 and 10 so they are on the peewee team, or whatever little league for football is called. The younger one is a smaller kid and looks so stinkin' cute in those pads and helmet. Helped him get through 9 guys to get a touchdown so he doesn't mind at all. Now, with peewee football players come peewee cheerleaders. These are undoubtedly, the cutest little 6 and 7 year old cheerleaders. Unless, of course, you were sitting on the other team's side of the field. The matching pig-tails, squeaky shouting, uber-excitement-totally sweet. What I can't, for the life of me, wrap my mother of 2 little girls brain around is why in the world the adults who are in charge of teaching these girls various cheers think it is a good idea to teach them cheers that have them shouting "Shake your booty" or "split the V, dot the I, curve the C" and performing the novice stripper moves that go with those lyrics all for the benefit of the adult audience in front of them. I might have been able to chalk it up as just maybe slightly inappropriate until I heard the coach of these 7 YEAR OLD girls yelling at them in the middle of one of the cheers, "Shake those hips girls. That's what God gave 'em to ya for." I wish I was making that up. At that point I looked at my sister slackjawed. She's the mother of the football players who also has my 1 year old niece coming up in the ranks. She laughed because she knows how much the cheers infuriate me and said, "That's why this one is doing gymnastics." Yeah, well don't even get me started on my confusion as to why male gymnists get to wear pants and women have to wear the wedgie one piece. There are plenty of cheers for these girls to do that do not include shaking booties and pelvic thrusts-why can't they just do those cheers? Am I just being overly sensitive because I have 2 girls of my own? What do you think?

Daycare

Yesterday was my girls' first day back at daycare since I left for maternity leave back in May. I wasn't sure if I was going to be returning back to work. I wanted to be able to stay home with the girdles (as my grandfather used to call us), and was making a go of having my own home daycare, but that was not to be. I only had one client and no prospects of any additional curtain climbers. So with the financial world swirling around us in the pre-flush twister and an offer waiting for me at my job, we decided that I should come back to work. It was with a twinge (and by twinge I mean hundreds of hot pokers jabbing at me from every angle) of guilt that I sat down with my 2 year old and asked, "If mommy goes back to work will you be sad to go back to Debba's?" We had had almost 4 months of 24 hour a day togetherness. Most of the SAHM's I've talked to have always spoke about how your child needs and wants you more than Elmo and fruit snacks combined. They told me that she would forget about Debba and just be so happy to have her mommy home with her all the time. mmmmm hmmmmm. I should have remembered my step-father's quip, "Who's this they? And why do you care?" She looks at me and says, "You stay with me Mommy?" uh-oh here it comes, she's going to freak. I'm a horrible mother. I say, "No, Mommy will have to go to work." She tilts her head and investigates further, "You drop me off?" yup-she's going to start crying when I say yes. Why couldn't I have hit the lottery while I was home. "Yes." "You take baby sista work too?" now she's going to give me grief for leaving her sister too??? has she been talking to my grandmother and I missed it? "No, she'll go with you." "Me go Debba's now?" great, now she's going to think I want to get rid of her now and don't want to be with her. will her therapy be covered?? "No, not now. In a few weeks. Later later later." "ME GO DEBBA'S NOW!!!!!!!!!" And everyday after that the same thing. You would have thought Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Fairy Godmother all were coming to visit her the night before the first day of daycare. She was THAT excited to go to sleep so that she could wake up and go to Debba's. Why do I listen to what other people say about me leaving my girls with a non-family daycare provider? Why do I let them plant the seeds of doubt about whether my girls are happy there, when I KNOW they are happy and loved? Why do I care what they say when they don't know my girdles or their Debba? Silliness I tell ya-just plain silliness.

Now for the chicken incident

For as wonderful as my husband may be, his memory is absolutely horrible. Amazes me that he can remember the stats for every NFL player on his fantasy football team, but can't remember that I told him 7 times that we have to go to a birthday party for our nephew over the weekend. So yesterday I was watching Oprah and it was about overwhelmed moms. The zenny, feel good speaker she had on was saying how HE didn't understand why husbands weren't the first line of defense in combatting the feelings of being overwhelmed. We should be telling our husbands when we are feeling overwhelmed and ask for help. I so wanted Oprah to say that we really shouldn't have to ask, considering that nobody is ASKING us to do what needs to get done-we just do it. Why does a woman have to ask her husband to take the full laundry basket down to the basement? He sees it is full doesn't he? Anyway, after watching the show, I did the dishes, prepared the bottles and juice cups for daycare the next day, packed the diaper bag, completed daycare paperwork, bathed the baby, and set the coffee pot up for the next morning. As I was taking the baby upstairs to feed her and put us to bed I asked my husband, who had been sitting on the sofa watching Gladiator for the 100th time (I love that movie too) to please bring a roaster up from the basement freezer so that it would thaw and I could put it in the crockpot in the morning for dinner. He said he would do it. I then made direct eye-contact and said, "Please do not forget to bring the roaster up from the freezer before you come up to bed." He said he wouldn't. I walked upstairs hoping he would disappoint my expectations which were that he would forget. So I get up this morning, nurse the baby and get dressed to let the dog out and take her for her walk. I get downstairs and lo and behold there is no thawed chicken to be found. Took the dog for her walk and came home to his lowered head and "oops I did it again" smile when he saw that I took something else out that I could get in the crockpot before I left for work. I'm going to find that zenny feel good Oprah guy and tell him "SEE-THIS is why women are overwhelmed." Ask for help? Sure...then he just forgets and I'm more overwhelmed because now I have work harder to figure out what to do since he forgot to do the thing that would have helped me NOT be overwhelmed.

Sssshhhh-don't tell anyone...

My husband is a great guy. If you have a great husband, don't you find that you can't often proclaim that in mixed company? It's like you're not allowed to be part of the club if you don't complain about the guy. He's not perfect-remind me to tell you about the chicken incident from last night-but he is a darn good man. And yes, I've told his mom that she did a good job raising him. He does laundry, bathes our oldest daughter (the baby is still too slippery in the water for his comfort), and cleans the bathroom. Ready for this? He does these things without being asked. My aunt would kill me if she heard me praising him for this. She would say, "As well he should!!" Funny thing is, I don't think he would like me bragging about him either. As much as he takes pride in being one of the good ones, he's not exactly sitting around with his buddies telling them how they should be helping their wives in the kitchen because she would appreciate it after having cooked dinner that night. He keeps it very hush hush when it comes to how hands on he is with the kids and other tasks that don't involve a lawn mower. Those same guys are slackjawed though when my husband tells them that I "let" him go on a week long fishing trip while I stayed home with our 6 month old daughter, or "allowed" him to play poker with his buddies. "How'dya pull that one off?" or "Man, you must have caught hell for that." They don't get it. Why can't they all see the circle. He does his fair share in our home/marriage, I don't complain about his hobbies or time he spends alone, nor he mine. I don't complain about his hobbies or time he spends alone, he does his fair share in our home/marriage. Their loss I guess. I'm just glad somebody, somewhere let my husband in on the secret.

So how does it work?

How free do people get with these things? Any reprocussions? I'm thinking it will sooooo be typical for me to write something that lets me totally get something off of my chest, but then at the next family event an aunt or somebody says, "So, I was on the computer and saw your blog" that just happened to be all about them. Ooops. Has this happened to you? What did you do? What did you say?

Yes, I'm a follower

A friend of mine has been happily blogging away sharing all the details of planning her upcoming wedding. I love reading what she writes and always think how much my husband would have loved me to have a blog when I was planning our wedding. Not that he remembers all of the discussions, but I'm sure his heart would not have been broken if I was posting blogs about flower colors and heel height concerns. My friend is able to discuss the all consuming planning without the inevitable eyeroll of her betrothed, and their relationship will be all the stronger for it. It's a win win situation for everybody. So I thought, "Hey-here's a bandwagon I can jump on." My husband is my best friend, but I know he gets tired of hearing the vents about work, how our families drive me cucko sometimes, etc. I wonder if he'll miss it when I'm not complaining about his brother, or if he'll just walk away muttering, "Thank Blog!"