Florida

I know my two loyal blog readers have been wondering where I am lately, but fret not you two, I'm back!  We took a little mini-vacation to Ft. Lauderdale with some friends and it's taken me a few days to get back into my normal routine.  Even though we were only gone for 4 days, traveling in general - especially with a toddler - really throws me off.  Coming home to mountains of laundry, no food in the fridge, and a filthy house doesn't help. 

Anyway, the weather gods did not bless us on this trip but we still had a great time.  We landed to pouring rain and promptly headed straight for the pool bar to congratulate ourselves on surviving:

- 1 take-off temper tantrum
- 2 in-flight poops of epic proportions
- the general attitude problem of every American Airlines employee I have ever encountered in my entire life
- and that Haitian dude at the airport who tried to snatch our luggage and scam us into taking his fake cab God knows where

Audrey had a little friend on this trip and can I just tell you how cute 2-year olds can be?  My ovaries were exploding the entire trip, I swear.  They were like an old married couple that just happens to be 2 feet tall and run everywhere rather than walk.  For starters, they hold hands constantly (OMG, loves it).  If one sneezes the other one says, "bless you!" and then the sneezer replies, "thank you!"  And then one punches the other in the face.  But still, super cute until the punch, right?  Here they are looking at the airplanes:

On this trip I also discovered that sleeping in a king-size bed every night literally might change my life.  The improvement in my sleep was so shockingly apparent that I've told the hubs we will have to sacrifice Audrey's college education if need be to save up and buy a king-size bed.  Bed-hogger that he is, the hubs thinks I'm being dramatic and ridiculous, but he's not the one waking up 56 times a night so I am going to make this happen one way or another.

I'll close with my awesome parenting beach tip from this trip.  If you keep losing track of your kid on the beach because you're too busy gawking at the guy running by in a banana sling/g-string/whatever the heck it's called (true story) just bury him/her in the sand and viola, problem solved.  You're welcome.

Work week success

This week was one of the two big work events my company has every year. It means working really long hours, being on my feet most of the day, and not seeing T for a couple straight days even though we're still technically living under the same roof.  This year, I also had the pleasure of catching T's cold right before my first 5am alarm. Nyquil doesn't mix with being "on" (both in the brain and people sense). Lovely.

The hubs pulled off the single-parenting duty of the week pretty well.  Despite trying unsuccessfully to teach our toddler to "listen" in lieu of saying "no" (and I think quite possibly having a collapsing on the couch moment of frustration after bedtime that non-listening first night) - daddy and son had some good bonding time while mommy was running laps at the local convention center. Hubs even faced a kiddo ear infection and sinus infection head-on, had a solo doctor visit and picked up the prescription (on the second try) for the little guy. Daddy success!

My success over the past few days stemmed from working with an awesomely adorable Australian couple who opened my eyes to an amazing discovery. Apparently the desire to shorten words into halvsies is more than just a 30-something gal thing.  It's an entire continent of Australia thing.  It's the dialect. So now I have a whole new list of bona fide words that I can say without the hubs insisting I'm making it up to be cutesy. I can just say I'm speaking Australian. Cool right? Ok, maybe not overly cool, but I'm tired and stuffy and my brain waves shut off hours ago, so it's the little things that make me happy during this insane work week.

So whose up for some brekkie? Avo?

Preschool update

Audrey has been in preschool for 2 weeks now, and I'm still trying to figure out what she does there.  Despite the fact that she never stops talking, she clams right up when I ask her about school.  So, I have to try and figure it out by observing her at home.  Here's what little info I've gleaned:

1.)  She now refers to herself as "Miss Audrey" so I guess she has either promoted herself to teacher (wouldn't surprise me) or the teachers refer to the kids as "Miss" and "Mr."  (Is that a southern thing?)

2.)  She frequently sings the following bits of songs to her doll babies:
- "God our Father, God our Father...Amen.  Amen." (it's a Methodist school)
- "Monkey swinging through the tree - alligator can't catch me!"
After each song she shouts, "Good job friends!"

3.) At least once a day now she tells me "I have to go potty," at which point I get really excited, plop her on the toilet, and then get a "she fell for it!" look before she bursts out laughing.  It's not quite as hilarious to me...

4.) She must be eating way too many cupcakes there because she asks for one daily now.

5.) I know she's going to art "class" because the teachers told me, but for some reason she's intent on destroying everything she makes before she gets home so our fridge is sadly still empty.

And my nap mat idiocy continues.  After spending nearly $50 to overnight a foam nap mat from Amazon, I learned that the school already has those for each kid.  What they really wanted and apparently needed to spell out in great detail for me and only me...was that the kids need a sleeping bag-type thing that can be rolled out on top of the foam mat.  When I asked the other moms where they had gotten theirs they launched into something about sewing pillow cases together and stuffing them and then sewing a blanket on top.  After some blank staring and awkward silence on my part one of them suggested Etsy, which I did consider but didn't want Audrey to go another 2 weeks without a nap mat.  So, I splurged AGAIN on one at Pottery Barn Kids now that they're back in stock.  Yes, it would be great if I were crafty, knew how to sew, and had enough free time to stuff and sew pillow cases together but I can barely get a shower in every other day so that's out of the question.  So Pottery Barn it is.  The hubs is thrilled with this expensive lesson in what-the-eff-is-a-nap-mat by the way.  And I think I've cemented my reputation as clueless mom at school.  But whatevs, it's mandatory to invite the whole class to birthday parties so they're stuck with us!

Mentally preparing for potty time

I know that my kid isn’t ready to be potty trained yet. But, as that time is creeping closer and closer by the month, I decided to take the first couple steps into the world of potty training. Because let’s face it, just say the words “potty train” and I wind up completely overwhelmed. Teaching a kid about the world of toilets feels way over my head.

Steps I’ve taken so far:

1. I bought a book for me. However, I got sucked into Gone Girl and then into a Witch/Vampire “Harry Potter for adults” book, so I’m only on page 10 of the educational one.
2. I bought a book for T. It’s Sesame Street. Of course. (I did think I was ordering Elmo, but alas, it was Ernie instead)
3. I bought an on-the-seat potty. T appears terrified of it. Unless it’s on the ground. Then he likes to hold it up to his head and say “boo.”
4. I bought a regular potty. T is not terrified of the little potty, although so far, he refuses to sit on it. Even in clothes. He much prefers to stand with his feet in the bowl.
5. I signed up for a potty-training class. More for the social aspect of going with a friend, but some expert tips might not hurt.

Things that terrify me?

1. Splash guards for toddler boys. Uh, gross.
2. Driving with a newly potty trained kid in the car. Portable potties? Double gross.
3. Shopping with a newly potty trained kid in a mall. Since I will NOT be these people.
4. Leaving the house with a newly potty trained kid. Ever.

Is it terrible to hope that my kiddo’s daycare does most of the training for me?

Frappuccino time!

While I'm not sure I've quite perfected my home-made Frappuccino recipe, here goes anyway.  These really come together pretty quickly if you have an espresso maker and this particular recipe makes about 2 servings, so, perfect for sharing with a friend.  I stupidly let Audrey taste mine today and she promptly spit the entire mouthful out IN MY FACE so lesson learned.

Ingredients:

2 shots of espresso
3/4 cup milk of your choosing
2-3 tablespoons of sugar
3 cups of ice

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend.

If you want to jazz it up finish with whipped cream and chocolate or caramel sauce on top.  Otherwise, here's what you get:

Next I'm going to tackle a pumpkin version.  After all, it was 85 degrees this weekend and that equals "fall" in Texas, right?  At least, our neighbors had a fire going all day yesterday so I guess I'm not the only one desperate to leave summer behind.  Cheers!

First day of preschool

Well, we did it!  Survived our first day of preschool.  It's hard to believe we started this process all the way back in February and here we are, starting the school year.  Audrey was very excited when we were getting dressed this morning and even cracked half a smile for this picture before we left the house:

Once we arrived she was less sure about the whole thing, as I tried to take her picture underneath the "name sign" where she leaves her backpack and lunchbox each day:

And then we got inside the classroom and all hell broke loose.  One kid started wailing and then it spread like wildfire.  Suddenly all the other kids started thinking, "maybe this place does kinda suck if he's crying, so I'd better cry and try to get the hell outta here too."  Cue meltdowns all around.  I finally pried Audrey's arms from around my neck, handed her to the teacher, and made my escape.  I knew she would be fine and sure enough, 5 minutes later she was sitting at the table coloring. 

In all of this commotion I'm pretty sure I identified the class bully.  He was trying to get out of the classroom and back to his mom, and some poor little boy was in the way.  Rather than walk by the bully basically clocked this kid.  Not joking.  And rather than make him apologize his mom just walked him back into the classroom.  He's also 3 years old because his birthday was 4 days after the cut-off date for the 3-year old class so he's basically twice the size of all the other kids.  Oh, and his name is Drayton (do people just make up names these days?) which rhymes with Satan.  I'm just sayin'...

To wrap up the day I took Audrey and her friend Jack out for frozen yogurt (okay, I wanted some too) and we celebrated surviving day one.  Now we get to do it all over again on Friday!

Arranged marriage?

T had a great time with his gal pal Audrey this weekend at our place in Austin. They frolicked in the mud (or, in other words, went in the kiddie pool in our backyard), found out they had similar interests (shared some toys), had a romantic dinner date (without highchairs and trays), and jumped into the bath together. (Yes I know, we won't condone that behavior when they're teenagers, for the time being though, it's adorable).

And thanks to Audrey and Erika, we may (possibly?!) have escaped the bath-time tantrum cycle since he's been asking for them at bath-time instead of pitching a fit since they went home.

Is it too soon to start negotiating an arranged marriage?

Reason #1: T would love his in-laws. Me too!

Reason #2: They already share sweet moments.

Reason #3: It would be totally romantic (for an arranged marriage). After all, they're already sharing the same side of the bench on their first unaccompanied dinner date. It's fate.

Reason #4: They understand teamwork.

Reason #5: Look at those goodbye kisses. See what I mean? It's too cute for words.

The crib escape

It appears we're rapidly running out of time to keep T in his crib.

This weekend, he escaped about a gazillion times. Without a crash, without freaking himself out, without batting an eye. He literally just swung a leg over and dropped down the other side. (Spying on him with the video monitor is very entertaining these days.) Thank you, Little Gym, for teaching him these wonderful rock climbing skills.

And where did we find him once he made these great escapes? Sitting on his chair, reading a book.

Maybe he'll read this book next time he sneaks out. It should be arriving in the mail this week. Oh Elmo, please explain to my child how important lounging in bed is!