Gobble Gobble

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, already. This year is going by so quickly. I can't believe Nora's almost 8 months old already. It seems like yesterday I was shoving her out into the world. Oh, and then having horrible complications and going into shock, but that's water under the bridge. I'll just bring it up whenever she's being particularly heinous to me in the future.

Things I'm thankful for:

The kidlets. When they're being good:

My husband, who is so grateful and humbled to have me as his kickass wife:

Yes, the picture's like 4 years old. I wanted one where I didn't look exhausted and fat. Ah, the good old days. We look so unaware of what was coming.

My fam:

Also an older picture, from last year. Apparently we don't believe in getting pictures taken of all of us very often. Or if we do, I just can't be bothered to put them on my computer.

Other things that float my boat:

My friends edged out the french fries, but just barely. Those things are good.

Although you know what I'm not thankful for? When you're all excited for hot, greasy, salty fries and you get them and they're like hard and brown and crunchy and feel like chewing on a hard piece of skin. Totally ruins my day.

Goes without saying.

Hubba hubba

I am not so thankful for:

Today is Sunday.

You like that title? Couldn't think of anything original. Must be all the mucous and phlegm clogging up my brain. I feel like crap. Very tired, crabby crap. Eric's working 3rd shift right now (everytime I go to write "shift", I write "shit" instead. Fruedian slips and all that). So he's gone all night at work, and sleeping upstairs during the day. Totally sucks. I do like having the bed to myself at night so I can sprawl out and turn the fan on, but then I'll be laying there and imagining that I hear some serial killer opening our front door, or I'll remember some freaky horrer movie that I saw like 10 years ago and not be able to sleep. But that's ok, because Nora doesn't sleep either, so we can just sit up and be freaked out together.

So, as mothers, we all think our kids are special, right? Look at how cute and precious the little kidlets are.

But then sometimes, you wonder if they're, well...special.

I love that hat of Nora's but it kind of makes her look like a knob head. And it's almost impossible to get on. Apparently, if you're in public and trying to get your kids ready to go outside to the car, it is absolutely impossible to get on. I know.

We were at the grocery store yesterday (well, more accurately, at the liqour store inside the grocery store. Don't worry, I got food, too) and getting ready to head out to the car. Now, at the grocery store, Tate likes to ride in those carts that look like racing cars so he can "drive". No problem. Well, except for the fact that I can't put Nora in the drivers seat with him, because I'm not an idiot. She'd come out of that experience missing a layer of skin or an ear or something. We're still working on the whole "be nice to the baby" concept with Tate. It's slow going. So I wear Nora in a sling. To put her in the sling I have to take off my coat, her coat, hat, etc, because otherwise we'd look like a big fat Shamu carrying a little marshmallow on it's chest.

So anyway. I got Tate all bundled up, as he was screaming for the sticker he dropped on the floor that I stepped on and got stuck to my foot, and started on Nora. After I realized there was nowhere to set her down to get her coat on, I sat her on the floor. Apparently this is a mortal sin because she immediately started hollering and trying to flip over onto her stomach so she could make a getaway from Evil Mother. Trying to get a coat on a kid slipping around on a linoleum floor ain't no easy feat. Add trying to get a hat over the kid's head and it's pretty much impossible. Kind of like trying to get clothes on a giant, flopping, hysterical fish.

What really made it fun was the old lady buying some Franzia who kept commenting "Oh, these days go by so fast. Enjoy them now because soon you'll turn around and they'll be grown!". I was about to grab her by the collar and hiss "Not soon enough, lady." At this point one of the managers noticed the steam coming out of my ears and kindly came over to help. I'm sure she recognized me as one of her best customers and didn't want to lose all that business.

I also got Nora these boots.

Cute, huh? I know. I have excellent taste. Except these aren't boots, they're tiny, pink, fur-lined BASTARDS. Suckers will not stay on her feet. I found this out when I got out to the car, finally, and realized they were both MIA. This is what ensued:

Me: "GAHMOTHERFRIGGINSTUPIDCRAPBOOTSFROMHELLARGHHHH"

Then I saw one of the boots bouncing away and someone came up with the other one. I felt pretty cool when I realized he had witnessed my boot-related meltdown, but really, at that point, I didn't care.

Annnnd, finally, Melissa's cooking tip of the day. If you're making chicken noodle soup for lunch, it'll cook faster if you turn the stove burner on.

Remember that for next time.

Oh Yuck.

So I was browsing around on the internet this morning and read that Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz had their baby. Yeah, breaking news, I know. But they named the kid Bronx. Bronx Mowgli.

Ok, seriously? Not funny. Who does that to their kid? Who names them after a burough of New York where they tawk like dis and some random Disney character dude? Bronx Wentz. It sounds like a brand of bratwurst or something, doesn't it? Get your Bronxwentz bratwurst!!

There are some horrible names out there. I can't stand when people try to be all unique and special and end up giving their kid some trendy piece of crap like McMadysenKylieeLynn. I swear they're popping up all over. Just add a Mc- or a -son or -lynn onto any name and you've got the perfect sparkly, made-up gobbeldygook name of the day! Damn, my kids could have been Mctatedan or Annoralynnlie. What was I thinking? I totally missed the boat there.

If people want to truly be unique and original, freaking name your kid James or Caroline or something. I bet you anything they'd be the only one in their class, surrounded by Jaidens and Neveahs and Dextons. Pretty soon people will have used up all the somewhat normal place or noun names so we'll have little Carpet Fiber Jones and Sleepy Eye (not kidding, it's a town in MN) Vegas Smith running around. Cause, you know, it's all about being uncommon. Or unreal. Whichever.

Everyone out there should just let me name their kids. I would totally rock at that.

Dirty Dancing, ABBA, and Parasite Train Man

So this weekend was our world-famous, often imitated never duplicated, second annual Girls Trip to Chicago. Watch out, Windy City...here comes the 30 something mothers from Green Bay! We're pretty hardcore.

The weekend started off not so great. The plan was to leave from my house around noonish. All the girls got there, we hung out, laughed at Tate, and waited. And waited and waited and waited for Eric to call saying he was done at work. By 1:45 I decided waiting was for pansies and we all headed down to the designated meeting space in Manitowoc where Eric would drive the kids back up to Green Bay in our car and the four of us would continue on our journey. So we get to the gas station, I call Eric, and he's not done. Nowhere close to being done, funnily enough. Not so funny at the time, I promise you. So there's four women and two very confused, tired children stuffed into my van. We were making the best of it though and having a good time. Well, except for Nora. For some reason she thinks my friend Nicole is the Evil Incarnate, so everytime Nicole's head would pop over Nora's carseat to say hi, she would flip. Not that I can blame her. Who wants to see some giant disembodied head popping into view at random times with no warning?

This was us.

Notice Tate's look of confusion. He just has that air of a man desperate to get out of a car full of cackling women. Nicole's in the green coat. I gotta say, it is a scary head. Poor Nora.

So Eric's ride finally pulls up to the gas station and we all pile out of the van like clowns coming out of a miniature car. I gave him a kiss, waved bye bye to the kids and off we went to catch our train in Milwaukee. The original plan was to get the 3:00 train but that didn't work for obvious reasons. So we decided to hop on the 5 o'clock. We get to the Amtrak station at 4, skip inside, and realize the train isn't til 5:45. Perrrrfect. Can you blame me for mixing a little something something in with the Coke I bought from the vending machine?

Anyway. We get to the condo around 7:30, dump our crap and run back out for dinner since we're all so hungry we're about to start dining on each other. And you know what else we did that night? Nothing. We're so old and pathetic and the traveling and waiting wore us out so much we were giddy at the thought of just sitting on our asses in the condo and drinking. So we did. And we did a damn good job of it, too.

Saturday, though...we went to see Dirty Dancing! Live on stage! It was awesome! I totally screamed when Johnny Castle walked out on stage and I was the only one and I didn't care because he was totally hot and I was just waiting for him to take his shirt off and when he did it was totally awesome but he had an Australian accent that kept coming and going so it was weird but it really didn't matter because he had a 12-pack and then when he said "Nobody puts Baby in the corner I screamed again but it was ok because other people did too!!!!! The play was really good. It was the same as the movie, line for line, song for song, dance move for dance move. Cecilia and I did an extremely good job of refraining from reciting all the words along with the actors. Oh, and we managed not to jump in the aisle and do the lift at the end too. It's all about restraint.

Here's us outside the theater. A cop took the picture. Yes, we really are that cute. I love my leopard jacket...I was too preggo to wear it last winter so I'm totally rocking it this year even though it's about as warm as wearing Kleenex.

Oh, and since there were five of us on Saturday since Cecilia took the train in from her parents' house, this is what we looked like in the back of cabs.

That picture is of me on Jodi's lap, and Sue. It was taken by Nicole. She was in the backseat with

us. Cozy? Yes. Hot? Very much so. Smelly? Maybe just a little.

Saturday night Jodi and I took the novices back over to the Blue Frog for a little karaoke. This was the site of our stunning karaoke fail of August '08. We were determined to make a comeback and leave 'em wanting more. And we so did. We totally rocked Sweet Caroline and Dancing Queen. People were dancing in the aisles, yo. We were better than ABBA themselves. We weren't better than Neil, though. No one is better than Neil, but we knew that going in. We had backup dancers! I was doing that thing where you hold the microphone out to your audience during the chorus so they can sing back like we were playing to a house of 305,000 adoring fans! It was more like 50 adoring fans, but they adored the SHIT out of us. Success. August's karaoke experience needn't ever be spoken of again.

Then we came home at about 12:30 am. God, we are crazy. Who stays out that late?? I amaze myself with our party animal ways.

So the train ride home...we ended up sitting right by the bathroom. Let me just say right now that that was not ideal. What was really not ideal was having this creepy, pale, ucky looking guy slink into the bathroom FOUR times in a 90 minute trip. Oh, and each potty break lasted a good 10 minutes. The last one was a quadruple-flusher. Sue and I were lucky enough to be able to close enough to count the flushes, and also to realize that apparently this man didn't believe in washing his hands after shooting the entire contents of his bowels into a hole on a train. Gagging yet? Yeah, tell me about it. I'll spare you the explanation of the foul odor that would follow Poopy Man out of the bathroom each time. I swear it was like a green cloud that would just hover over us. Didn't help so much that he apparently couldn't figure out how to shut the door behind him when he left. GAH. I seriously think he had some kind of parasite eating a hole in his intestines or something. Which is always a really really fun thing to think about. I know my mom is reading this and throwing up in her mouth a little bit right now.

Anyway, aside from Foul Butt Man, the trip was another great time. Lots of sleep, lots of drinks, lots of laughs...doesn't get better. Next time we're taking the train cross-country to Seattle. It looked cool on the poster. That was good enough for us.

Num.

So the holidays are coming up already. Now, I know there are many great things about this time of year, right? Most people will say the best thing is, you know, peace on earth, goodwill towards men, putting money in the little Salvation Army pails....





No.





You want to know what the best part of the holidays is? It's this, baby.

Oooooh yeah. I had my first sighting of the year at the grocery store yesterday and pounced, squealing, upon the first box I could grab. These things are like chocolate and cream crack-filled sandwhich cookies dipped in white fudge ecstasy. I may need to get Eric to hide the box so they don't all get eaten in one day. Eh, who am I kidding. If I can't find any, I'll run to the store right away to quell my withdrawal and buy 19 more boxes. This shit's good, yo. Screw Christmas caroling and making memories with your family....THIS is what it's all about.

The girls and I are heading to Chicago today. I'm sure shenanigans are to follow. Nothing like a group of 30-something housewives/mothers to really shake up the big city. Maybe this time we'll be able to make it out past 1 am. Don't count on it though. Sleep is pretty much the big draw this weekend.

Hmm. Maybe I should pack.

Photo FAIL

I tried to take a few pictures of the kids today just for kicks. Let's gauge my success.

Now, those are some good-lookin' spawn.

Here's Tate after my refusal to let him play with the camera.

And Nora after my refusal to let her suck on dog hair:

But I kept on, desperate to prove to myself that my kids are, indeed, not freakishly un-cute. I was mildly victorious.

Ignore the runny nose, please. I had to take what I could get.Too bad this one's blurry, but my camera is not that great sometimes:

I decided to call it a day after this one. In case you're wondering, Nora has no clothes on because she had just pooped through her fourth outfit. It was 11:30 am. Good day.

Barbra Streisand Knows What's Up, Yo

Have you ever heard that shmaltzy, cheesy song that Barbra Streisand sings on one of her CDs? (Yes, I may own a few of her discs. Shut up, she's awesome). It's called "Children Will Listen" and there's lines in it like "Careful the things you saaaaaay, children will listen. Careful the things you dooooo, children will seeeeeeee, and leeeeeeeeearn". Well, turns out Babs knows what she's talking about.

Tate and I went out to run errands today and ended up at Wal-Mart since we had two birthday parties coming up and had to get gifts, cards, etc. I was cruising the parking lot looking for a kickass spot when I spotted a guy getting into his car in a primo location, so I stopped and waited. And waited and waited. Seriously, I think this guy got in his car, took a nap, contemplated the meaning of life, and then shaved his back or something. He took FOREVER. So this is what happens next:

Me: "Come ON, dude! How can you be taking this long?"
Little voice piping up cheerfully from the backseat: "...ya bastard."

Well, crap. I've already heard the kid start yelling at stoplights ("Come on! Turn green!") and just at the general population of cars outside his window when we've stopped for any reason ("PEOPLE! Seriously! MOVE IT"), but this bastard thing was a whole new trick.

I'm afraid he may get it from me.

Now, come on, I know you're all thinking there's no way that any such comments could ever come out of my mouth, but I do employ a healthy bit of road rage now and again. It's good for the complexion. I'm thinking I may have to start keeping it in check, though, before Nora starts spouting profanities at some little old lady in the Buick next to us. I can just see her flipping someone the bird.

Anyway, I realized again today that doing errands and stuff with only one kid as opposed to two is basically like a vacation. One is nothing, y'all. I don't know how I would get so stressed out just getting Tate out the door and to the store or playdates or whatever. One is just one! Tate and I have good times together when we do our weekend erranding. It's nice. We'll chat about the color of the cars in the road, and who his friends are, and laugh when he farts...all the good stuff. What was really fun today was taking him to Old Navy. We walked in the store and he pretty much took off at a dead run, cackling all the way. So I'm chasing after him as he's running through clothes racks and pulling mittens off the shelves, and I can't even do anything but laugh. Just hearing the sound of his sweet, gleeful laughter drifting back to me as he runs makese me happy. Other shoppers were getting a kick out of it too, which was nice. Better they laugh at my kid than glare at him as he tries to pull their kid's ear off the side of his head.

Finally, to end on a more somber note, my friend Jodi's beautiful baby girl Gabby has to go and have surgery to correct the shape of her head, because the plates in her skull didn't fuse correctly. I have cried for this sweet baby, and for her mother, because I cannot fathom what it must feel like to know that you will have to hand over your child to people that are basically strangers, and watch them take that child away from you to go operate. To open her skull. I have no doubt that any mother would rather go through the surgery themselves, ten times over, than to have to subject their children to it.
These doctors of course are extremely skilled, and apprently do one of these types of surgery a week on average, so everything will go well. But this is a baby, a precious little baby, and it's heartbreaking to just think about. So I will continue to pray for Jodi and Gabby, and will be there for them in anything they need. She has a blog of her own, which will chronicle their experiences leading up, during, and after the surgery, which you can find on my link list on the side of my blog. It's called "Gabrielle".

Whoo-Hoo!

So, this guy is awesome.

Yay! Way to go, B-to-the-O! You (Ba)Rock! Yeah, I know that's not how you spell his name but I was just trying to make it work. Anyway, I'm not a very political-y person and this is not a political-y blog, so that's all I'm going to say about that.

And this guy? Rocks my world.

I went to his concert last night and it was pretty fab. Well worth the freaking 6 month wait. He was supposed to play in early September, but got laryngitis and rescheduled. Well, then he wasn't fully recovered or some crap so he rescheduled AGAIN. I almost cried. I was just waiting for him to finally take the stage last night and then fall off during the first song and break a hip or something.
Let me just say, you know it's going to be a good concert when you're walking up to the venue and see that 95% of the concertgoers have grey hair, hearing aids, and/or a bottle of Ensure tucked in their back pocket. People were buzzing past us on their wheelchairs and those little motorized scooter things to get in the door. Then we sat down and realized that classical music was playing over the speakers. If that don't get you in the mood to rock, nothin' will.
The concert was great, though. And you know how I know it was a successful experience? I got complained about to an usher. Yep, God forbid you stand up at a concert! And sing along! And shout "I love you Neil! I want to have your baby, Neil! Neil Diamond Forever!!" Your standard stuff. But apparently the two people in front of us who just sat there like lumps the whole time were not impressed. Oh well. That's what you get for swigging ReadyFiber instead of beer.

It was worth only getting 4 hours of sleep last night. Neil rocks my world.

Kiss My Butt, Daylight Saving Time

I've been up since 3:45 am. Seriously, whoever came up with this whole Daylight Saving Time scam needs to be surrounded by screaming kids at 3:45 am and then SHOT. It's going to take days to get the kids to where they'll sleep til at least a somewhat decent hour (like, oh, 5:00). I'm annoyed.
People need to stop being all "Yay! We get an extra hour of sleep!" Yeah, well, all I get is another hour in an already unbearably long day.
Argh. I'm not in a good mood.

Halloween

So Halloween is over. Let the official stuffing of the face begin. Actually, I've done pretty good restraining myself so far. Tate only trick-or-treated at about 20 houses, so he didn't get too huge of a load. The only candy we have left over is a gigantic mound of Dum-Dums. There is Mount Dum-Dum on our shelf right now. But those don't count as candy...they're too small. You pop one in your mouth, suck for about a minute and poof! Gone. Then you have to go grab another one, because, really...can one be satisfied with just one Dum-Dum?

We had a fun week. We had a couple costume parties with the playgroup, and then our huge trunk-or-treat on Friday. It was a lot of fun. Everyone decorated their trunk all Halloween-y and put out candy and all the kids went around to each trunk and filled their little paws with goodies. I'm shocked I didn't win for best trunk. I had two pumpkins. Two WHOLE pumpkins, people. Yeah, I don't do creative stuff. Although I did make an apple crisp to bring, and as word spread that "Melissa? OUR Melissa??" actually baked something that A) didn't catch on fire or B) wasn't something that had the possibility of chipping someone's tooth, people dove in. I felt very proud of myself. That shit was good.

Then that night Eric took Tate out while Nora and I stayed and gave out candy. It was wonderful weather...warm and clear so we were able to sit outside the whole time and let people coo over Nora the Banana. Oh, I totally scared the crap out of some punks, though. There was a group of that annoying age (11ish, 12ish) of boys who thought that drawing a moustache on their face or ripping up a shirt constituted an actual costume and were out getting candy. I hate when kids do that. If you're too old to put a costume on, you're too old to trick or treat. And you're punks.
Anyway, they stopped at my neighbors house, who just had a bowl sitting out on their step while they took their daughter out. The boys took one look at the unaccompanied bowl and freaking attacked it. I saw them scooping handfuls of candy out of the bowl into their bags til there was nothing left. I then took the law into my own hands, stood up and shouted "HEY!! DON'T YOU DARE TAKE ALL THAT CANDY!! PUT IT BACK NOW NOW NOW!!!". I've never seen pre-teen boys jump that high. And they actually put it back and went on their way. They skipped coming up to my door, though. Guess they thought I was too scary.

So yesterday was pretty much spent on a sugar high for both me and Tate. We went through about 20 Dum Dums between the two of us. Although those things are so small they're easily lost. I was upstairs folding laundry on my bed when Tate says "Where's the supper (sucker), Mama? Where did it go? Hmmmm....", and stars looking around in earnest for his sucker. Well, in earnest for about 20 seconds before giving up and trotting downstairs for a new one. Cause like I say, we have 345479 of them. I could not find that damn sucker for the life of me. It was completely gone.

Oh, until I crawled into bed later that night. I was absolutely wiped out from being with the kids all day and not getting any sleep the night before. All I wanted to do was get into bed and lay my head on the pillow and relax. So I did.

And found the sucker. In my hair.