Random musings and moderate hypochondria

It looks like my robot sidekick has not been posting daily as I programmed her to do. Bad robot! I am going to have to check her wires and switches and doo-dads for some kind of malfunction, but until then, my sporadic posting will have to do.  Because I have absolutely no focus today, this post is going to seem like a Seinfeld monologue - unrelated musings that will make some people laugh and others crinkle their noses with disdain. Enjoy!

Does anyone else have problems holding in the hysterical laughter when the preschooler in the house says something hilarious yet wildly inappropriate? For example, the other day my just-about-three-year-old son was pooping on the potty (I cannot scream this loudly enough - YAY!!!!!), squeezing for a considerable amount of time. When he finished he stood up, looked in the bowl, and proclaimed, "That's a huge crap!"  I actually asked him to repeat himself because I couldn't believe I had heard him correctly. Yep, huge crap. Totally not appropriate out of the mouth of a little kid (or really anyone for that matter) even though it was, in fact, a huge crap. I laughed so hard I couldn't stop coughing. He now thinks it's entertaining to say "huge crap" and says it as often as possible. Mama of the year over here!

I have learned a new acronym during the course of potty training my son. NTAF (never trust a fart). The wrong fart can ruin a whole day (and the most-favored Thomas underpants). Someday I will once again be able to forget such an acronym was even necessary, but now it's sort of my mantra. Have mercy.

I have started looking forward to spring (although in DC it lasts about 10 minutes before the wild humidity swoops in). I love the way the air smells, the longer days, the jacket-free mornings.  My biggest concern is sartorial: how does one wear cool scarves in spring/summer without looking like a refugee from an overheated sauna? Flowy patterned scarves have become a key part of my wardrobe this winter and I don't want to have to give them up. I love the way they add a pop of interest to a monochromatic outfit. I see celebrities photographed wearing scarves in the heat of the summer without looking the tiniest bit sweaty. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW THAT IS POSSIBLE? Have they had their sweat glands surgically removed? Or is there some trick I don't know? This is a serious question - I wanna be able to wear my scarves in the spring and summer!  /first world problems.

I ripped my cuticle the other day. It hurts like a mofo (can I say that in mixed company?).  I will spare you the details but it looks disgusting and I hope I don't end up with a deformed thumb. Did I mention it hurts like hell?  The hypochondriac sitting on my shoulder was all, "What if it's some sort of skin disease? What if you get septic? What if what if what if?"  I am a worst case scenario jumper. I have planned in my head for just about every horrible thing I can think of. I should write a book on how to survive the diseases you make up in your head. Would anyone buy it?

Okay, it's time to think about picking up my son from school. Maybe he had a huge crap today and told someone else about it.

Recovering from Twitter addiction. And birthday parties.

I've been sadly neglectful of this blog over the past month! I would love to chalk it up to some highbrow commitment I have, but the reality is that I spent some time as a Twitter addict, entering contests galore.  I started tweeting in January because my good friend F was winning contests for expensive things all over the place and I figured if she could, so could I.  Fortunately,  my husband staged a successful intervention and I'm back to all things in moderation. So hello again!

What's been on my mind lately... My son turns three in less than a month. They say three is like two with intent. Let me testify for the prosecution and affirm, under oath, that a truer statement has never been uttered.  While I love that no one can push him around, I don't love that it takes us about 30 minutes to get him dressed every morning because he is so. darned. picky.  If I had known this was coming, I would have bought every item of his clothing since his birth in a single, boring color so he didn't know there were options.  He also has to do everything in the whole wide world himself. Ever watched a preschooler try to pour his own milk? The dog was happy but the rest of us, not so much.  Good thing we love him!

He has already gone to a slew of birthday parties this year and each one is more elaborate than the previous one.  Tumbling classes, clowns (that scared the bejeezus out of some of the kids), and a traveling petting zoo are just a few of the extravagances. It seems like the competition for most talked about party is fierce. I admit that I am playing the game a little.  Some may call my attempts half-assed but I don't want A to feel cheated.  My son is all about sports, particularly hockey (which makes no sense to his baseball-loving parents), so we are going to take him and all of his little friends to one of those little gyms with supervised, rapidly changing activities focused on sports.  It has an indoor bounce floor, too.  Cake, pizza, and goody bags round out the madness. It can't be crazier than his second birthday when we took him and his little friends (and their parents) to Chuck E. Cheese, right? My hatred of that place has no bounds.  I am optimistic that my ears won't bleed after this year's party, but I guess we'll see.

Nice checking in with my peeps out there. I'll hopefully talk to you again soon.  Ciao a tutti!

Today is the first day of the rest of your life... until tomorrow is

First, a little bit about last night.  I am generally not a fan of holidays such as new year's eve where there are outlandish expectations that you will have the time of your life. I have had decent new year's eves and I have had horrible ones, but I am pretty sure it has never been the best night of the year.  To keep it low key and kid-friendly this year, my little family celebrated the ball dropping on the Eiffel Tower rather than on Times Square.  Ain't no way anyone in this house was going to make it til midnight so we decided to do it Paris-style and have a super early dinner and make lots of noise at 6 pm. We went with the nugget and a group of our friends to a very trendy Alsatian restaurant near us. I didn't wear anything sparkly, but there were no ketchup spots on what I did wear so I consider that a huge victory. I had onion soup and mussels (with bacon! best ever!) and champagne and some other drink and by the end of our dinner, I swore I would never need to eat again. We were home by 8, the nugget was asleep by 8:30, and the grownups were in bed by 11. Perfect!

I woke up this morning feeling pretty much just like any other morning. Does anyone get a different feeling on these kinds of holidays that merely mark a day on the calendar, not some event? I never do. We had a great day but it was pretty much like every other Sunday during the year. It was nice not to have a hangover, though. That is one thing I certainly don't miss from my child-free days - the day after a really good party. My head hurts just thinking about it. The good party, on the other hand.... sometimes I do miss that.

My new year's resolution this year is pretty simple: to use/buy as few "Made in China" products as possible. I have probably already broken it because everything from our orange juice to our toilet paper is made in China these days (and I have already had my vitamin C and wiped my butt today). I am just convinced (warning: conspiracy theory ahead) that the Chinese are putting all sorts of lead and cadmium and plutonium in our stuff to assure their world dominance. You know, melting our brains from the inside. Maybe? I'm probably nuts so don't spend too much time worrying about it. You can borrow my tinfoil hat if you want, though.

I close with this: Happy new year to everyone. I hope the Mayans were wrong... but enjoy each day as if they're spot on.

There's no place like home

Driving home after Christmas is an exercise in geometry and patience. Geometry because it takes a highly analytical mind to organize both the gifts and the people in the car without blocking necessary windows or DOT-mandated passenger restraints. Patience because we were in the car for 9 hours on quite possibly the most boring road in America.  I-81 from one end of Virginia to another is a snooze. Fortunately, it is so intoxicatingly dull that the little nugget got in a good long nap in between episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba, games of "moo at the cows!" and "what do you see out the window?", and long stretches of pushing the buttons on his new Buzz Lightyear. Mom and dad, on the other hand, took turns driving and yelling at traffic. No adult naps were to be had. Boo!

Do you ever wonder why sitting so long in the car makes you so far beyond tired, you can't even see tired in the rear view mirror?  I am so spacey right now that I bet my grammar sucks in this post and to be honest, I don't even care. For me, that is huge. HUGE!

I am off work tomorrow and it should be slow and easy for the rest of the week. As Tammy Faye would say back in the day, PTL praise the lord. I am going to go fall down face first on my bed right now. Sleep tight Internetanistas!

OH I ALMOST FORGOT - I am on Twitter! I still totally don't understand it but what the heck, right? My ID is momUNblogger.  Look me up!

Be careful what you wish for because it may annoy the crap out of you.

When my son was an infant, he was so cute. I know I'm biased, but so.cute.  The main problem between us was the lack of truly understandable communication. Hungry, tired, sick, pissed off, bored - they all sounded the same:  Waaaaaah!  I used to look oh so forward to the day when he'd be able to tell me what hurts/what he wants to eat/when he wants to nap (ha!). Well, that day has been here for a while (little nugget is almost three) and I have to say, my ears are splitting. He does.not.shut.up. Ever! If it's not turning to ask me, "What's that?" as we see the 100th semi truck roll by on the highway, it's singing "Old MacDonald had a sheep" (always a sheep) a hundred times in a row. Today we went to a Christmas market with my inlaws. We babbled on and on and ON about Santa, and the reindeer, and the various ornaments, and the need to visit every potty within a ten mile radius. It was non stop. I am surprised he didn't end up with dry mouth. I need some quiet time stat. But I ain't gonna get it any time soon. My mom tells me to enjoy it now because when he's a teenager, he won't tell me anything.

I sincerely hope Santa put some earplugs in my stocking. Silent Night is sounding like more like a hope than a song!

Merry Christmukkah to all!

Cheap therapy

Some days, you just have to get it out. I am on the ranty edge and about to burst, so let me tell you what's putting me there. Feel free to submit any of these to White Whine because they are clearly first world problems. I suck.

1. My office is noisy because they decided to install some sort of air blower in the ceiling above my head. They (whoever "they" is) won't move it or dull the roar so I sit in my office listening to what resembles jet noise all day. It is maddening. To make matters worse, it is the cold side of the building and my fingers are a lovely shade of blue.
2. I swear I have extremely sloped shoulders. Freakishly sloped, in fact. I cannot keep my purse on my shoulder. This morning it slid down and caused me to spill my coffee on my pants. They're black pants, so you can't see it, but it went from hot to cold in no time flat and it looks like I peed in my pants. Lovely.
3. I just heard that this will probably be the last season of House, MD. While it isn't the same without Cuddy, I am *dreading* the day they end it. I get a little ferklempt just thinking about it. My name is Michelle and I am addicted to Hugh Laurie.
4. For some reason my clock is dysfunctional and is operating at a slower pace than it should be. It isn't stopped, it's just slow. And I changed the battery this morning. I have been late to everything today.

There really is so much more, but I have to run or I will be late for my lower back's appointment with the most excellent back cracker.  Ciao!

First, a little bit about me...

There are so many mommy blogs out there. Some of them are even entertaining and worth reading. Most of them drive me nuts because they are so flippin' earnest. I am sure little Susie (more likely little Mykynzy) is wonderful and smart enough to skip six grades and is fascinating enough to be the subject of a 5,000 word treatise. I bet that someone out there wants to read about every little burp and pee and nursing mishap right as it happens. Those people probably aren't my readers. Wow, that's bold of me - assuming I'll have readers. How presumptuous! So what makes me and therefore will make this blog interesting?   Let's see...

• I am a grammar freak. I totally make fun of people who misuse apostrophes, commas, and quotation marks. I worry that one day I will have to hire a lawyer to draft a contract and find out too late that he/she is one of these chronic grammar abusers. Whammo, that clause does not mean what I think it means and I'm screwed.
• I have no idea how to use Twitter but apparently its use is mandatory for bloggers. This should be fun to watch.
• I work in an asylum. Not a literal asylum, but pretty darned close. My place of work shall remain nameless for now to protect, well, me.
• I can't stand Twilight, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. I am not on team Jacob, or Edward, or Gandalf. I am not a Belieber either. Sorry.
• If I could be anyone at all, I would be Tina Fey. Just for a little bit because I don't want to have to wear glasses all the time. But she's awesome.
• If I could be best friends with anyone at all, it would be Chelsea Handler. She is freakin' hilarious.
• My preschool-age son is a riot and my husband is a very well-intentioned man of solid midwestern stock. I am from Boston. Sometimes our upbringings clash and it's hilarious.

Anyhoo, that's why you should follow my blog. I rock. Both of my parents say so.