Preschool: Part 2

So, preschool update - we got in!  Yes, we fought the masses and got Audrey a spot.  Actually, the hubs spent the night in the school parking lot for 10 hours when we realized people were lining up at 9:30 p.m. THE NIGHT BEFORE to register (seriously people??) and we officially joined the crazies.  Before you think I'm a terrible wife for making him do that, I will add that I did offer to spend the night in the parking lot myself.  However, the hubs kindly pointed out that I could be jumped/car-jacked/attacked while alone in a parking lot all night and even though I didn't think that was very likely, all I could think about after that was being jumped/car-jacked/attacked - so I stayed home.  And I wasn't totally let off the hook.  Audrey likes to wake up at 2:30 a.m. on the dot every night and scream bloody-murder-someone-is-breaking-into-my-room-to-kidnap-me for about 10 minutes, so, I dealt with that instead.

Now I have until September to grow a pair and get used to the fact that my baby is OLD ENOUGH FOR SCHOOL - when did that happen???  Even if it is only 2 half-days a week.  And yes, this whole thing was my idea but I'm still giving myself permission to have mixed emotions about it.  God help me when she goes to college kindergarten.

Not so fashion forward

This post is not about my kiddo, my husband, poop, or any combination of the three. Nope. It's about me. And how I'm a little afraid of this year's fashion must-haves. The early 90s are coming back into style. Don't get me wrong. I loved the 90s. Coloring strips of my hair with food coloring because I was too scared of the permanence of Manic Panic hair dye -- that was awesome. I shared a love of red backpacks with Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano was my dream guy (ok, his status as dream guy might've gone downhill along with his taste in fashion). Even today, my iPod probably has more 90s music than it has 2000s music on it (Shiny Happy People included, which yes, I know not even the band liked at the time). I repeat, I loved the 1990s. But I think I'm gonna fight some of these trends this time around.

Printed Jeans: Is it humanly possible to carry off patterned denim without looking like they've been in my closet since 1992? I CLEARLY remember loving my striped and floral jorts back in the 7th grade. Not so sure I want to draw attention to my booty with strategically placed flowers. I don't think I'll be recreating this look.

care of Net-a-porter.com

Neon: Let's face it. As cute as skinny models might make it seem in pseudo-reality, eye-squint inducing yellow shouldn't be anyone's signature color. Especially mine.

care of Bloomingdales.com

Nature Prints: Really? I think I wore one of these dresses to my Middle School graduation. I guess I should never attempt to clean my closet out. It'll be back on the pages of In Style the second I do.

care of Instyle.com

Sheer Tops: Ok, so I'm kind of on the fence with this one. One one hand, I love girly, lacey things - and this look sort of comes close. On the other hand...I remember loving Nancy Kerrigan's costume in the '94 Olympics as a teenager. So you understand my reluctance to embrace the sheer-look whole-heartedly now. Then again, Nancy Kerrigan's costumes were designed by Vera Wang back in the day...so it had some merit even then. 90s look or not, there is some hope for me jumping back on this trend.

care of Style.com

Any halfway normal spring looks that I'm forgetting that I need to own? It's about that time to refill my closet and obviously...I need some advice.

Ahh, four year olds...

They are hilarious.  I have hardly any experience with them actually, but babysat a friend's kids last night and the older of the two just turned 4.  Here are some the gems she asked me while we were getting ready for bed:

4 yr old - "Do you have a baby in your tummy?" 
Me - "No, but I'm glad I got up at 6:00 a.m. for that gym workout today.  Clearly it's paying off." (Sighs, eats cookie)

4 yr old - "Does Audrey still drink milk out of your boobies?"
Me - "No, but I miss those boobies."

4 yr old - "Why are you watching me poop*?"
Me - "Oh, sorry, I thought maybe you needed some help."  I start walking out of the bathroom, then I hear, "Where are you going?!  I want you to watch me poop!" and I'm walking back into the bathroom...

*Yes, I realize an obscene number of my posts mention the word "poop" and this is probably costing us 1.5 of our 2 blog readers - sorry.  On the flip side it's bringing us some new blog readers that Google freaky things having to do w/poop.  No, I am not obsessed with poop - swearsies - but all this talk of poop could explain why I have no friends.

Bear of a Bathtime

Gotta love when you end one of those great mommy-son nights with a temper tantrum straight from WWIII. I've been on single-mom duty all week since the Hubs is traveling for work. I can handle it. I have my groove down. We have a formula we stick to and it works. And some nights are doggone fun.

Tonight was one of those nights. We walked the neighborhood. We laughed. We made music with the kitchen pitchers and ran around with the fly swatters (T's new favorite toys). We played. We pointed out the socks on our feet and the hair on our heads. We forward-rolled.

Then T pooped.

Yea, I know. Gross, but no biggie. But hey, he's gotta get clean before bath time because I really didn't feel like Cloroxing the tub tonight. Nevermind, it was a biggie. First off, it kept T from his beloved bathtime for several extra minutes. Quelle horreur! Picture a toddler attempting to catapult himself into the tub when realizing that his momma was trying to take him away from it. Now picture the toddler screaming bloody murder as his momma leads him away from the tub to get rid of said poop. Now picture T doing anything BUT staying still while momma attempts pre-bath clean. Now picture momma wearing said poop when T refuses to cooperate. Ok, so I give up. Toddler tantrum wins - time for the bath. Only now, it's too late. Someone doesn't want to be in the bath anymore -- that window of opportunity shut when momma kept him from diving headfirst into the tub. End-of-the-world scream, cry, and attempt to throw toddler-self out of same tub that he was trying to climb into minutes before. Where is The Happiest Toddler on the Block's advice on this?!

So, a perfect mommy-son evening ended with a big ole "Thank God it's Finally Bedtime" sigh.

Mommy fix for the bathtime blues? Post-T's bedtime, lying on the couch watching the DVR of The Bachelor (yes, I still watch this show. I miss a season here and there, but I've embarrassingly been hooked since the days of Alex and Trista), with my Reese's Minis (heaven in an orange bag) and some vino. And all is right in the world again.

Disney clothing sale at Amazon - plus extra 25% off!

Amazon is having a pretty good sale on Disney baby clothing. Use code DIS25OFF at checkout for an extra 25% off. Lots of cute basics for boys and girls and I think they're throwing in free shipping too. Too bad I've already bought all the baby gifts I need for now. I think the hub will flip if a new outfit shows up in Audrey's closet, ha ha! Here are a few of my faves from the sale:

Happy shopping :)

Northern Exposure

We've had our first little glimpse of winter down here in Texas today. Like, in the low 40s. I know, it's February already, you probably don't feel all that sorry for me. I've never pretended to like the cold - but I remember last year, saying that I was a little achey for a good snowstorm. It's true, that little ache for snow sneaks up on me, maybe once a year. I think of the snow we had in New York. You know the kind, when you snuggle up on the couch with some hot chocolate and fluff, a blanket and girly movie and watch the snow fall outside from the warmth of the couch. Oh yea, that's right, that sort of snow only really happened in the movies -- instead, no doubt, it would happen on a weekday, so you'd end up sloshing around in the dirty wet snow, getting lovely salt de-icing stains on the bottoms of your pants and hoping that work would send you home early due to "bad weather" - which of course never happened because the subways weren't slowed down by the snow in the least. Now that I think about it, I'm not really sure why I miss it!

Anyway. It was cold today. Brrr. And there are rumors on The Weather Channel that we might even get some of those flurries I've been missing tonight. Because Texans don't seem to believe in dressing for the weather, I've been brainwashed to think that T didn't need mittens. I was wrong. And now, I'm doing (what else?) online shopping trying to find some cool tipless gloves for the little guy so he can still get his Cheerios fix on our daily walk. Flurries tonight? Cool. Then...I'm ready for spring.

All bundled up (minus the mittens) on today's walk

When Did I Turn Old Enough...

To read Redbook?

Seriously. I've always had this impression that Redbook was Cosmo for grown-ups. Now, I admit, I grew out of reading Cosmo back in my early 20s and I'm kinda-sorta in the grown-up age range at this point. But still....When did I get old enough to actually relate to what Redbook has to say?

So I stumbled across their blog a few months ago. And I admit it, I even bookmarked it. There are something like five different women who write for it. Sometimes I totally get it. Their thoughts totally echo my thoughts. Sometimes I'm just not "there yet" or am already "over it." (I'm writing this on an off-day....so don't judge my reco on the current post.) But well, it's a quiet day at Chez Moi, so instead of hitting up some online shopping, I thought I'd share some reading. Sharing is caring!

The Anal Stage

Yes, you read that title right.  Freud was onto something.  Audrey has officially left the oral stage and entered the anal stage.  By that I mean she continually walks around with her hand shoved in her butt crack.  This is gross.  This is embarrassing.  This is highly inappropriate in public.  Okay, it's probably inappropriate everywhere.  And her fascination doesn't end with her own butt.  None of us are safe.  Did I mention this is gross?

So now I'm trying to figure out what the heck to do about it.  They don't really cover this stuff in the baby books.  Ride it out?  Smile at random strangers who are horrified that my child has her hand in her butt?  It's not really something you want to bring up with your still-new mom acquaintances.  I can imagine that conversation would go something like this:

Me: "So...does Jack walk around with his hand stuffed down his pants and jammed in his butt crack all day long?  He doesn't?  Oh.  Um, Audrey doesn't either.  I was just kidding. (awkward pause).  Yup, totally kidding!"

After that little convo I probably wouldn't even have "acquaintances."  So I'd like to nip this one in the butt bud on my own.  (Sorry, couldn't resist.  Yes, I'm 32.).  In the meantime I'm buying hand soap in bulk, we're spending a lot of time in the bathroom, and I swear I cannot escape the smell of poop.  It's a riveting life we lead.  Here we are exhausted from a full day of butt-cracking:

Some reading from the past

I’m a little behind on my internet reading. Oh well. It’s hard enough for me to get through the whole (and very essential) red carpet “Do’s and Don’ts” lineup on E! Online's award season recap (I've got priorities, people!) – so sometimes reading the news takes back burner.

So anyway, I came across this article from Today Moms on moms judging other moms. Felt it was worth sharing because it rang pretty true to me. We all do it to some extent and probably shouldn't unless you’re one of those moms who, you know, deserve to be judged for putting up videos of your kid smoking crack for all the world to see or something like that. I kid, I kid. Ok, not really.

Reading this article brought me back to the early days with T, when I brought him to Target on a less-than-perfect baby day because I was in desperate need of a can opener momma just needed to get out of the house. The second we stepped into the store he started crying (and man, did he have a set of pipes) and didn’t let up. Enter the helpful totally annoying old man and his wife in line behind me at the checkout who tsk’ed tsk’ed the whole time at the horrid new mother in front of them whose baby was so unhappy. “He’s hungry, you know” is what the old guy said to me. I think I just said something lame in response back like “Oh.” (always good with the comebacks under pressure, this gal!) but had all sorts of responses I wanted to shout at him. “Oh? Am I supposed to feed him? They didn’t tell me that in the hospital.” I seethed to myself, to my hubby, and to anyone that would listen to me (over T’s screams, of course) that he had no right to offer up unsolicited advice like that to me. It was a judgment on my parenting – and as a brand-spankin’ new parent, I was already judging my abilities left and right. Rest assured, rude old dude, you were wrong.

I’m a whole lot more seasoned as a parent these days but I still judge my parenting skills enough that I promise I don’t need anyone else to do it for me. (“Am I telling him “no” the right way to indicate both love and sternness?” “Have I shown him his belly button enough times today for him to learn it’s there?” “Is it OK to tinkle when holding him if he won’t let me put him down?” Ok, the last one's a little weird, but it really does cross my mind when it happens...and yea, it's happened more than once.)

So my public service announcement of the day? Lay off the judgey-ness moms! (Said sternly, non-judgmentally, and with love of course)