Tonight we had a nice family date night that involved a trip to the mall playground, the Mac store and Hooters. I’m 100% serious. It was lovely.

I came home to find this in my inbox from Conny at Baggino. Just a short message saying she’d been sent this video by her daughter’s preschool teacher and that she felt compelled to share it with others.

Random circumstance or something happening for a specific reason, I’m not sure… but I needed this. And I think some of you may need it, too. Just know, it WILL just might make you cry. It WILL make you stop what you are doing and go watch your baby sleep, tuck your toddler in a little tighter, replace the teddy bear under your 6 year old’s arm. It will make you appreciate “the gift of an ordinary day”… and I promise nobody dies.

Have a great weekend.

Kendall is 22 and a half months old, and I really look forward to all the ordinary days ahead of us

You can’t see the bottom of our closet through the massive mound of dirty clothes (and honestly, some of them aren’t dirty, but they’ve gone so long without getting put away that we just tossed them back in the pile), Kendall’s laundry is piled in the hall next to the laundry room, waiting for it’s turn after the pee-soaked towels are done in the wash. There are dishes stacked in the sink, my kitchen floor has visible foot prints. I am suddenly disgusted by the amount of dog drool stuck to the walls and the baseboards should be burned.

It sounds like screaming, and whining, and Diego, and a washing machine running, and a white noise machine on the in the background that I always forget to turn off after I get my terrorist toddler out of bed in the morning. It sounds like “Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh, UH OH!” and like “It’s NOT an uh oh if you do it on PURPOSE”. It sounds like a giant dog pissing on my carpet AGAIN.

It feels like a grimy table that’s next to impossible to get all the stuck on granola cereal cleaned off of.  It feels like sticky tile floors. It feels like stepping in a wet puddle of pee and wondering if it’s from the boy or the dog.

It tastes like coffee, a lot of it… and then later it tastes like wine. It tastes like omelets for lunch AGAIN because I know he’ll eat eggs. It tastes like chips, secretly consumed when the kid’s not looking.

It smells like pee. It’s inescapable. It also smells like I need to vacuum AGAIN. It smells like vinegar and water cleaning solution. It smells like baking soda where I’ve tried to soak up the pee. It still smells mostly like pee.

Today I’m not holding it all together very well. Today I’m frustrated and annoyed and overcome with guilt. Today I want nothing more than a break from my son. I want the whining and the screaming and the tantrums and the turning to jelly so that I can’t possibly gracefully pick him up from the floor of the bounce house and take him home to stop. I want it to be someone else’s problem for just a little bit. I want to come home to a house that is clean and will FUCKING STAY THAT WAY. Counter to what you may think of my housekeeping skills based on the description above, I do actually clean. A. LOT.  I want my dog, my nearly 7 year old dog who has had diabetes since he was 5 months old, requiring 2 shots of insulin a day, to get his damn blood sugar under control and to stop PEEING IN MY HOUSE. I want to leave this place and go on a vacation.

Today I’m guilty. I’m drowning in guilt. It’s washing over me and beating me against a rock wall. I don’t know what’s wrong with my nearly 2 year old kid. It could be that he’s nearly 2, or it could be that he’s not feeling well. I thought about making an appointment at the pediatrician, but I really have nothing to base it off of (no fever, no runny nose, no cough, no rash) other than him seeming completely and utterly bipolar for the last week. I want to have more patience with him. I envision myself being more loving, more kind, less frustrated. I hate that I get frustrated. I HATE THAT I WANT A BREAK.

I feel guilty for not caring more about my sweet, loving English Mastiff Bruno. I mean, I do care, but it’s hard to remind myself that he can’t help peeing all over the place when his blood sugar is at 400 for the 3rd day in a row. We left the dogs over the weekend with a dog sitter checking in on them twice a day. With his blood sugar being so high, he couldn’t make it the 12 hours between visits to potty outside. We came home to a house that smells like a kennel. The dog sitter did a great job cleaning it up, but this place isn’t going to be the same until we clean the carpets.  I hate that I’m so irritated by this.

It took nearly an hour and a half to finally get out of the house this morning and head to the gym. You know, the gym that watches my kid for 2 hours? Yeah, Kendall doesn’t like the child care center. He’s been three times now and each time he sits by the door cries or whimpers the entire time we’re working out. (It doesn’t help that the last time I came to pick him up I found him playing with a file drawer and grabbing a stapler. The staff, at least the times we’ve been so far, seem apathetic and it’s starting to piss me off.) He started screaming the minute we pulled into the packed parking lot, just moments after I realized I forgot my headphones. Enough. It was enough to just say eff it. I got a coffee at a nearby drive through and headed to the bounce house. It was, of course, storming and pouring the whole time. Once there, 5 minutes of happy followed by incessant request for “nacks”, followed by inevitable meltdown.

Finally home, I fed the kid, what else, some form of eggs with cheese and veggies. While getting him ready for his nap, I made the strangest, most mind boggling discovery. I took his shoe off and noticed his sock was wet. The other one was, too, but just a tiny bit. Hmm… I thought it was probably the rain, although I figured it was weird that he didn’t seem to get wet anywhere else while we were out. I smelled the sock (like a reflex, I now smell all fluids since becoming a parent). It was soaked in PISS. The diaper? Dry. The shorts? Dry. The right shoe? Most definitely smelled like piss, too.

My dog peed on my kid.

::hands thrown in the air::

I’m done. I need a vacation. I need to go somewhere far, far away from diapers and dog piss. I want to go somewhere where the only fluid I’m smelling is wine.

Yesterday I planned to blog all about my many ideas for a vacation and ask for your opinions. Unfortunately, I just spent all my blogging time breaking down over pee.

I’ll try to get it together for the vacation post tomorrow.

Kendall is 22 months old, and I love him, I really, really, really do. More than anything. And I’m so grateful that he’s healthy and that he’s so amazing.  And I hate that I want I break, that I even think about wanting a break. I hate it.

Just a quick post to 1. tell you how excited I am to be a contributor over at BurbMom.net now and to 2. tell you how pumped I am to show off my stroller whore knowledge (not nearly as kinky as it sounds) over at the DFW Family Expo this Saturday.

1. A few weeks ago Holly found my blog, then I found Holly’s blog, then we emailed back and forth about some blog things, then she invited me to come on as a contributor for BurbMom.net! I love when blogging and networking come full circle. I’m so thrilled to become a part of their community, and if you’re in the DFW area, specifically North Dallas and Fort Worth, you should check it out. It’s a great community and website for moms, by moms with lots of local information. I just published my very first post over there today. It’s about…

2. The DFW Family Expo, put on by Metroplex Baby and Kids and benefiting Children’s Medical Center. The Expo will be held at Centennial Hall in Fair Park this Saturday, the 13th from 10 to 5. There will be plenty of stuff to do for everyone in the family. Since Barb and Tina (co-founders of MBK) know I’m a wee bit obsessed with strollers, they pegged me as the perfect representative to help out with the stroller exhibit where not only can you gaze at some of the hottest strollers on the market, but you can also enter to win one of several. I’ll be manning the entry box. You may bring me treats, such as chocolates or cinnamon rolls or coffee, but I’m not in charge of drawing the winners. Just so you know. You can read all the details in my post over at BurbMom or you can just head straight to DFWFamilyExpo.com to check it out and purchase your tickets, which are super affordable at $3/adult and $2/child 2 and up.

Hope to see lots of you there! Be sure to identify yourself as a creepy internet stalker online friend

I spent years, 6 to be exact, dreaming of leaving my small South Texas home town, of breaking free from that tiny community where everyone knows way too much about each other. Population less than 3,500 and it seemed that half of them were related to me to some degree. I never considered myself much of a country girl. The last time I rode a horse was in 7th grade before I fell off and broke my arm mere weeks before cheerleading tryouts. Devastating. Never had the desire to get back on or be around one since, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Kendall’s able to ride one on his own in a few years, leading, no doubt, to the begging and pleading for one of his own.

When we go “home” to visit my mom (Kendall’s Nana, or “NA” as he likes to call her), like we did this last weekend, Kendall is THRILLED to pack his mud boots and talks all about the “orses” and the “moos” and the “wowers”. This time he got to see some tiny “woofs”, too. Though, he wasn’t nearly as excited about the puppies as I thought he would be. The whole time he kept looking at them, asking where the “orses” are. After all, he can see dogs anytime he’d like back at his house.

It’s funny that I worked so hard to leave this place only to have my kid fall in love with it.

Kendall is 22 months old and still despises the 6 hour drive home from Nana’s house. Also, he will forever have a black eye.

Not that I’m going to go switching up my blogging approach, but I figured I’d do a little day in the life post for you all while Kendall naps today, give you a little peek into our day to day life, which is, unfortunately, pretty mundane, but we always seem to find the humor even in the mundane around here. This house is full of laughter (also full of screams and NOs and dogs barking… we are a very loud family, I think we scare some people).

We signed up for 24 Hour Fitness yesterday after nearly 2 years without a gym membership. The biggest selling feature for me was not the hundreds of cardio machines, complete with Ipod compatible TV screens, nor the classes or the indoor and outdoor pools. No. I was 100% sold on the 2 hours of childcare a day. Sure, I have to stay at the gym, but I don’t have to actually work out. I can drop my kid off and go sit in the jacuzzi or lounge by the pool for 2 hours if I want! I can’t even being to explain what this will do for the level of my sanity the weeks Scott is travelling for work.

My sister said, “I have a feeling you’re going to be REALLY in shape because of this.” That, or I’m going to have a killer tan sunburn. And I’m not the only one benefiting. I know for a fact Kendall would much rather hang out in the Kids Club with it’s giant tunnel slides and buckets of crayons, then hanging with me for those 2 hours.

We got up and dressed this morning, excited to head over for our first visit, only for me to realize as we  headed to the door that I left my wallet/ID/gym pass in Scott’s car yesterday. Ugh. Isn’t that just the way it always freaking is?

While I called Scott and waited for him to confirm that he, indeed, was in possession of my wallet and I hadn’t left it in a grocery cart for the 20th time, Kendall occupied himself with his nifty chalkboard cabinet in the kitchen. I keep meaning to show this off to you all. Not that it’s super inventive, or anything. I just took down the cabinet doors one day, taped off the insides and painted a few coats of magnetic primer and chalkboard paint on top. The magnetic primer was SO not worth the money and effort. I think I painted 4 coats of it, and it still barely holds a thin magnet. The chalkboard part is awesome, though. That and the contents of his very own cabinet keep him entertained at least a good 10 or 15 minutes a day.

It’s also really helpful on rainy and cold days when he wants to play with his “cock ass”, which translates to “chalk outside”.

Seeing as how we were already dressed, me in my running clothes, and it’s a damn near Spring-like day here today, I figured we’d run up to the park. Nothing like a trip with a ballsy toddler to a giant, metal structure with several open landings  3-5 feet off the ground, all spaced at equally awkward and hard to get to angles to get your blood pumping. I spent most of my time internally conflicted as to what was the safest thing for me to do – stand on the ground and run around the play structure like a Labrador anticipating a flying tennis ball, or follow his every move and possibly get stuck in a narrow tunnel. Despite my very valiant attempts to keep him from hurting himself, and calmly and repeatedly asking him to go “feet first” down the slides, he still left the playground looking like this.

Boy, n.:  A noise with dirt on it.

Since we were already both covered in mud, I figured we’d go ahead and plant the “wowers” we got at Lowes yesterday. I only bought these things because they came with instructions, everything but water and a guarantee.

Except they didn’t say that the bulb was actually hidden in the big bag of dirt and that it would look EXACTLY like a giant clump of dirt. I was thisclose to packing the whole thing up and telling the folks at Lowes they sold me an incomplete kit. Really, pictures could have helped. Also, the above picture doesn’t really show off just how black my thumb is.

Per the instructions, which I followed to a tee, we put all the dirt and the bulb back in the provided pot. Kendall enjoyed helping with that part, but I could tell he was really confused by how none of this looked like a “wower” yet.

Then, following the instructions precisely again, we “watered well”. It was at this point I was beginning to think we put too much dirt back in, but the instructions didn’t say to leave any out! I’m taking this whole “guarantee” pretty seriously.

A mid-day bath was a necessity today, and a nice, unexpected treat for Kendall. We followed that up with some yummy black bean quesadillas for lunch, an episode of Dora, 4 books, a battle of the wills, and, finally, a nap in the “big boy” bed, which obviously doesn’t contain him or keep him from tearing down his changing pad or bringing his piggy bank to bed after I close the door.

2 changes of clothes and 1/2 of the day down.

Kendall is 22 months and .5 days old

I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to come up with a cool idea for business cards – something that will leave everyone knowing exactly what “Baby Rabies” really means, at least in the context of me. I figured I’d start with a little field research on Twitter, and asked everyone what they thought of when they heard the term “baby rabies”. As you might imagine, I got a lot of “well, honestly? a baby foaming at the mouth… a baby with red eyes… an evil, rabid baby.”

An idea struck me, and in my 1-glass-of-wine-down state of mind I quickly Facebook messaged my sister in law Gabbi. She just married my brother, and they are both attending the Art Institute in Seattle, he for Photography and she for Graphic (or maybe it’s Digital?) Design. They are both crazy talented. For real.

Title: Can you make a rabid baby for me?

Like, not a real one. Ha! That title is very misleading. I mean, a cartoon one. Just a chubby, cute cartoon baby with rabies. Maybe foaming at the mouth a bit, maybe red-ish eyes. Nothing too complicated, I don’t think. I’d like to use it on my blog business cards for an upcoming conference.

Of course, I can pay you for it. Just tell me how long you think it will take you and how much you charge. And please, please, PLEASE don’t feel pressured to say yes. I know you’ve got a ton of work with school, so if you can’t fit it in right now, that’s okay.

Hope you two are doing well, staying dry and not starving!

So then, for some weird reason, I went back and looked at my sent messages. I was thinking maybe I sent it to her before I finished writing it after I glanced over at my empty wine glass and realized how quickly I’d sucked it down.

As soon as I opened the page I was all :: confused, squinty eyes:: “Who is THAT?!” ::heart stops:: *GASP* ::desperately searching for some sort of UNSEND button:: “Oh SHIT.” ::still looking for unsend button, WHEN WILL SOMEONE INVENT THE UNSEND BUTTON??:: ::slow laughter…shrug…harder laughter..snort…face is red…commence new message::

Uhhmmm… clearly I sent this message to the wrong person!!! OMG. LOL. Sorry! Ignore, please.

That person? Uhh… yeah… not quite sure who he is. I mean, I’m fairly sure he went to high school with me. I recall friending him in a mass friending around our 10 year reunion, which I was in charge of planning. Nice guy, it seems, although I’m not sure that we’ve ever even had a formal interaction on Facebook. And now he’s probably totally confused/alarmed by my request. The title alone might make him unfriend me, which truthfully, would save us both a lot of embarrassment.

What’s even funnier is that another guy I went to high school with, who was actually quite a close friend of mine, saw the name of this blog linked on my Facebook page last year and was all worried, thinking I’m blogging about my poor child’s plight, battling rabies, and what a sad, courageous thing to write about… you know, until he clicked on it and was all, “Agh! OMG, my EYES! She’s talking about her shredded labia and chunks of flesh missing from her nipples and cloth diapers!”

You see the need, then, for me to really come up with a great business card concept so that others at Blogher do not mistake me for the girl with the rabid baby. You may also see the need for me to stop drinking and writing things… of course, that would make this blog a lot less fun.

OH! OH LOOK WHAT I FOUND?!  Facebook DOES have an “unsend” button! It’s called DELETE! Fancy that. I need to sober up. <Edit: No, no that is wrong. It does not “unsend” it. It merely deletes it from your sent messages list. Gah. I realized this when the guy messaged me back saying he didn’t think he could help me out.

Kendall will probably be 22 months old by the time I get around to spell checking this bitch and hitting publish.

Because even on days when I can’t manage to make a phone call (which, honestly, happens rarely anyway, except to my BFF Bonnie who also has a toddler son and totally understands when I go all Tourettes on her in the middle of a conversation), I can still reach out and touch some sanity saving sistas.

Of course, the street goes both ways, and last night I was on the receiving end of the most hilarious string of text messages I’ve ever received. My college friend Jaimee has a little boy about 6 months older than Kendall. As with all of my friends who have the joy of raising a toddler right now, it seems the topics of potty training and poop really bring out the kindred spirit in us.

J: “Currently sitting in a dark closet…O has a flashlight…while he poops in his potty…he is doing great peeing in the big potty, but prefers to poop in the dark in a closet?!?  Hmmm…Fun times in toddlerville! Thought u may enjoy the visual!”

Me :”Hahahahahahahhaa that’s hilarious! Made my night. Have fun!”

J: “Yeah a blast…whoever came up w/this portable potty was an idiot…the way I see it I just added a step…still clean his bottom…AND  a giant potty of poop.”

Me: “Can I put this on my blog?” I’m polite like that and ask, even though all my friends should know they are fair game for blog fodder.

J: “Of course you can…it was just one of those moments where I was questioning my potty training game plan…he was insisting that I sit next to him in the closet…I told him to hang on, so I could get my Blackberry… then he proceeded to fill that thing with days worth of poop…the smell… ugh!! All to get him to poop in the potty…really?!? Sorry…I could go on forever about this stuff!”

And just to know that my friend, who once joined me and 3 other friends on a 14 hour drive to Panama City Beach for Spring Break, could also go on and on forever in one way or another about toddler poop is enough to make me smile and feel a little more sane, or at least in good company.

Kendall is almost 22 months old and not any closer to potty training than he was 2 months ago, but I haven’t tried the in the dark with a flashlight trick yet.

I realize I owe a lot to his favorite programs. Not only do they keep him occupied while I wake myself from a zombie-like state or unload steak knives from the dishwasher, but they also teach him things. Really! I swear they do. For example, he learned to “waddle” like a penguin the other day thanks to Diego. Hilarious. That should really come in handy down the road.

That being said, the shows range on a scale of annoyance from “Eh.. this is a small price to pay for 25 minutes of peace” to “OMGSTFUSOANNOYING”.

He’s got about 5 shows in steady rotation these days, here’s how they rate on the annoyance scale from least to most annoying.

5. Caillou- Maybe it’s because this is the newest addition to the DVR, but I gotta say, I don’t mind the kid. He’s sweet, well mannered, and speaks softly.  Kendall LOVES him. Plus, I love that once I turn the show off, I’m not bombarded by Caillou anywhere else. He’s not plastered on boxes of crackers at the store, he’s not an action figure, and he doesn’t have his own set of Tickle Hands.

4. Blues Clues- I’m not in love with the show and I don’t think Kendall is either, but it’s manageable and seems to interest him every now and then. He discovered it just before he fell in love with Caillou. What I can appreciate about it is the noise level – quiet. There’s lots of tiptoeing around, looking for “clues”, and it’s all very subdued. Nobody is encouraging my kid to scream. Additionally, I think since the show peaked a long time ago it seems much of the Blues Clues paraphernalia and branded products have disappeared from stores, so it’s pretty easy to escape once we turn it off.

3. Diego- Up until a few weeks ago when Caillou stole his throne, this was Kendall’s absolute favorite show… well, after he fell out of love with Dora, and after Dora kicked Elmo off the top. Diego’s on thin ice with me, though. He’s coming close to wearing out his welcome, and I really don’t appreciate his insistence that “Everybody SCREAM!” all the time. And Diego is one of those we can’t escape. He’s nearly everywhere. I actually almost bought a miniature toilet seat with his face all over it in a moment of weakness while lying to myself, thinking a cartoon rescuer could entice my kid to potty train.

2. Dora- I don’t think I really need to justify why I’m annoyed by Dora, as I’m sure many of you feel the same way. She’s demanding and bossy and always yelling, “Say it LOUDER!” Why must we make the children be loud?! And she’s everywhere. She’s on shirts and shoes and sheets. She’s in your bathtub, your toy box, your laundry, your car. Sure, she’s educational, and sure she’s provided hours of entertainment for my kid, but enough already. We need a break.

1. Honestly, it was a close tie between and Elmo and Dora, but I had to give the number one spot to the furry red monster that Kendall has been obsessed with for the last 6 months. I don’t know what it is about him, but it seems like every 16 month old is instinctively infatuated with Elmo. He’s loud, he sticks around way too long, and he’s taking over the world. The marketing monster has grown so big that they now think it necessary and appropriate to introduce us to Tickle Hands. I might be willing to bump him down to #2 if his Potty Time With Elmo book and corresponding Elmo “big boy undies” actually get my kid to use a toilet.

What’s funny is after making this list I’ve found that a show’s annoyance factor is based on a few things, and they all seem to coincide. The longer I’ve been subjected to it, the louder it is, the harder it is to escape it and not run into licensed products at every turn, the more likely I am to be all OMGSTFUSOANNOYING. Now, if that’s not valuable information for… well, somebody out there who’s in charge of making sure parents are not totally annoyed by their lucrative little TV show, I don’t know what is. Unless they don’t really care about the parents because we don’t really have a choice. It’s possible that’s the case. It’s possible they have a deeper understanding of the power of a toddler.

Kendall’s one week shy of 22 months, and now I can’t shake that one time Elmo sang the “Skin” song to the tune of Jingle Bells. “Skin, skin, skin, Skin, skin, skin, Skin, skin, skin, skin, skin!” <Creepy, no?

The winner of the free piece of art with SOUL is commenter #105 – Amber!

The winners of the 50% 0ff discount are Diana and Ashley, comments #372 and #215.

Thanks to everyone who entered and gave Modern Bird Studios a warm welcome into the blogosphere!

DON’T FORGET you can still get 15% off with the code “BABY RABIES” until February 26th!!

Sure, I may not be as “successful”, career-wise, as the 19 year old me would have hoped, but I can honestly sit here and tell you all I am HAPPY, 110% happy, and that’s not something that even the 25 year old, career-driven me, who had quite the quarter-life crisis, could say.

But, let me not digress and turn this into a post all about how far I’ve come in 29 years or how I’m a little anxious about this next year coming and going, leaving me no choice but to turn 30. No, what I really want to talk about is how HORRIFIED and confused I am by clothes right now.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been super stylish, but I like to think I’ve been able to pull off some snazzy looks in my lifetime. The orange cowgirl hat, after all, was quite the eye-catcher and very “Coyote Ugly” back in 2000. Since becoming a stay at home mom, I’ve obviously had to ditch the pretty numbers from Banana Republic and Ann Taylor, which took me through my days full of  meetings and happy hours, in favor of more toddler and budget friendly apparel. That usually means I spend my days in jeans, a fitted shirt, some flats (or sometimes my good ol’ Skechers slip ons), and a fun accessory, like a scarf. Yup. That’s pretty much my SAHM uniform.

Well, my incredibly sweet husband, who happens to be equal parts frugal and fashion clueless, bought me some clothes for my birthday. It was such a sweet gesture, and luckily he understood when I told him I’d have to take it all back and try to find some stuff that would be more “practical” for me to wear (read- fit me, not show my bra straps, not covered in sequins). I returned to New York & Company the next day, ready to hunt down some new, trendy clothes. I searched and searched, picked and pulled from the racks, turned my head to the side, then back, squinched my eyes and tried to figure out what I was looking at.

None of it made any sense to me.

So leggings are in now, yes? And I’m to pair them with a clingy, long, what appears to be night shirt? And then what? I put a belt over it? Is it just me, or is this an outfit I would have put together at the age of 2 after ransacking my mom and dad’s closet?

And you want me to wear brown boots with my black leggings? This is going against every rule of fashion I’ve committed to memory.

Tie dye and acid wash are back? And tapered leg pants with pleated fronts? I mean, isn’t that exactly what we have all been mocking for the past 15 years? Are you telling me I need a mullet now? Or maybe just a rat tail? Big bangs?

I gave up, bought a plain purple shirt and some clearance flip flops (which I will most likely return because, as my husband said, “ANOTHER pair of flip flops?”), and headed to Target later that day. Not that Target is the Mecca of fashion, but I’ve scored some cute stuff there recently, mainly just more plain fitted tees. I meandered into the trendy Juniors section, hoping to step a bit out of my comfort zone, when my sister and I ran across this number.

Uhm, hi. Kelly Kapowski called, and she wants her dress back.

Is this just a sign that I’m getting old? Am I physically incapable of seeing clothes for what they are now and officially stuck in my comfortable, plain rut? Is this the first sign that I’m thisclose to giving up and turning into the cat shirt lady??

Kendall is nearly 22 months old and I’m 29 years old and 2 days.