Mommy’s Joy

This week I’ll be up to my ears in tennis which really impedes my ability to write.  It’s not that the sport takes my brains and turns them to goo….Mostly not.  It’s not that I have no time to write after I play….Mostly not. And it’s not because I get too exhausted to write….Mostly not.  It is however mostly because my racket hand gets so sore that to type is to torture.  My fingers feel like rusty nails hanging off my body. So this week, since I have over, over, over booked myself to the point where I’m playing 6 times in the next 4 days (Ya, do the math on that!), I will be featuring some of my very earliest posts that I wrote at the very beginning of my blog when I had no one, mom you don’t count, reading me.  I thought this would be a great chance for everyone to see a part of me they missed and a great way to let my hand stay attached to my body.  Lets start with baby…..

The most intimidating creatures on earth…babies

November 19th, 2008

Tonight my group of tennis ladies had an end of season/early Christmas white elephant party since one of our out of town teammates is in town for a couple days.  It’s always so nice to get together with all the ladies.  The wine and margaritas were flowing freely and so was the chatter. When you took a look around the room you saw multiple conversations going on about who knows how many different subjects.  But the amazing thing was there wasn’t one person left in the corner by themselves.  Everyone had someone to talk to and everyone has the same room full of friends so no one was lost in the conversation.  I had to bring my daughter tonight because dear hubby was playing in our club tennis tournament.  She spent the evening being passed around from one lovely lady lap to another and was just the cutest social butterfly ever.  There isn’t a mama out there that is more proud than I am tonight.

As I made my way around the room chatting about everything under the sun I started talking to one of the ladies about having kids.  She’s about my age, married and is starting to consider going down the preggo route.  While I talked to her I saw a lot of my former self in her eyes.  Her doubts and fears were my own not so long ago.  Until I met my dear hubby I had pretty well decided that kids might not be in the cards for me.  I was one of these women who was completely intimidated by these little creatures.  I know, I know, all the women out there that were born to be moms and already had it programed in their DNA to be nurturers are all wondering how in the hell I could be afraid of such a cute little baby.  It’s easy.  They bite, they puke, they poop and pee and do any number of other disgusting things a person in their right mind wouldn’t purposely want to be involved with.  EWEWWWW!!  They cry.  REALLY LOUD!  They don’t let you  have personal conversations if they are in the room. They make your body look like you swallowed a watermelon while you’re pregnant and then like a deflated, flappy, good year blimp after they arrive.  Forget long showers, forget makeup, and simply forget remembering to brush your teeth everyday.  Sleep doesn’t exist.  Your deodorant will be your best friend but forget the perfume.  All it does is make your baby sneeze and get snotty, and it doesn’t cover up the smell of baby puke anyways.  Forget clothes without stains and eating a meal without it getting cold.  I could keep going but since this is a mommy blog and since most of my readers are moms I don’t have to. You know where I’m at right now.  I know all these things aren’t that bad but knowing that all these things come in one very small, very breakable package is SCARY!

These were all the things I had heard about before I ever decided to have a child and my thoughts were NO THANKS!   I’d rather eat toe jam.  Then I met my husband.  The man of my dreams.  He’s so adorable it’s hard not to think of what he looked like when he was baby.  And then I started noticing how great he was with all his nieces.  They LOVE  their uncle.  He makes them laugh and always has something cool for the to play with outside.  You know, because he still a big kid in many ways.  The idea of a little ankle biter started growing on me.  He made it seem like all the icky things I’ve already mentioned might not be so bad.  But first we had to get past the thing that scared me most.  The idea that my child wouldn’t like me.  I have always been the type of person who would make what I thought was a funny face at a child in a checkout line they would start screaming.  I intimidated kids as much as they intimidated me.  What would I do if my own child decided I was scary?  Again, this might seem ridicules to all the experienced, always meant to be a mom, moms but to me it was an honest fear.  But my hubby prevailed and convinced me that it wouldn’t be that bad.  That our own child would love me no matter what, and all the other funky stuff I could deal with too.  He’s a very convincing man.  It’s probably a good thing he’s made a career out of tennis instead of being a con artist. He’s convincing but not very sneaky, and I’m not much into the idea of conjugal visits.

Long story short, we got pregnant.  Had our beautiful little girl.   And do you know what?  She’s not afraid of me!!  And I’m not afraid of her!!  She’s the light of my life and I can’t understand why it took me so long to do this.  I do believe children have a sixth sense about people.  Somewhere during my pregnancy the kids in the checkout lines started not being afraid of me and some even started to smile back.  I think they sensed that I was a mommy (to be) and knew I was now part of that secret society.  It was kinda weird to all of a sudden not be that intimidated person any more.  Now I live in a sea of baby puke, pee, and poop and I wouldn’t trade one minute of it.  Not for all the diamonds in the world or all the ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s.

So to my friend who I was talking to tonight.  Go for it, if your ready to face the challenge. Don’t expect yourself to ever be completely “ready”  because until the screaming beast actually arrives you won’t know the feelings I’m talking about.  That’s comes on his/her birthday.  But what ever you decide to do I support you and you can practice with my little sweet ankle biter any time you want.

Smiles

Shameless Plug:

Please take moment to vote for me and tell me you think I’m a top mommy blogger! Now THAT would really be the icing on the cake!All you need to do is click the <–-sparkly buttonand then click the option to enter that says I did not trick you into visiting that site. Because I would never do that! And then BAM, your vote will be counted! Thank you!

Love and Kisses!

Dog eat Doug

click any of the images to enlarge

And you all thought I was nuts talking about Tornado Baby all that time!

Speed Bump

click any of the images to enlarge

All that’s missing here is the halo that is being held up by the horns.

Daddy’s Home

click any of the images to enlarge

I think I had this same conversation with my husband except he said he wanted to get ME one. Um, good try honey. I’ll remember that next time I want a girls week in Vegas. It’s really a trip for you sweetie pie. You get some great alone time with our manic depressive 2 year old and I get to revolutionize myself.

Arlo & Janis

click any of the images to enlarge

We all know how this feels. You get a great new toy for our kid, or for mommy, and after you’ve bent your scissors, sliced open your hand, and made sure your dentist had enough income that year to retire, you feel like giving up. But then after one more giant tug your manage to give birth to your new toy. It’s scratched up, your hand looks like it met an evil cat, and you’re sweating and swearing like a sailor. Oh sweet victory over the box!

*Thanks to Comics.com for making all these great comic strips available to the public for the world to love!

Shameless Plug:

If you enjoyed this please click HERE to give Mommy’s Joy some love onTwitter! Or click one of the other lovely links below to ship my words off to the awaiting masses!

One more Shameless Plug:

Please take moment to vote for me and tell me you think I’m a Top Mommy Blogger! Just click on the pretty link to have your vote counted.

You can do this once daily if you’re really feeling the love!

*

*

Hugs and Kisses!

Well ladies and the few gents who dare.  I know you’ve just been on the edge of your seats waiting to find out who won the Boogie Wipes!  So without further blah, blah, blah with her entry number 18 and her original comment:

Which sounds like a wonderful usage for them! Our winner is Christine!  She blogs at Cute Stuff so go check her out!

Winner will be notified by email and has 48 hours to reply or a new winner will be selected.  And don’t forget, if you didn’t win you can still join the Boogie Bunch and get a $1 off coupon to try them out!

Thanks for playing everyone!!!!!

Secret peek into what your toddler is really doing when they are “playing” in the bathroom.

Ahh, a little me time……

Hmmm, I thought this was supposed to be an article about “Why mommies go insane”.

Better check that page number again.

Eeeeks! Shut the door!!!!

EX-cuse-me! Do I look like I want to smile for the camera right now? Would you want to smile for the camera when your on the crapper? Get a life woman!

note* Readers Digest should be paying me for this kind of advertising!

Shameless Plug:

Hurry!!!Last day to enter!!!!

Please check out my Boogie Wipes Review and Giveaway! Winner receives 3-30 count packages of the best stuff since sliced bread!!

*

For more of MY Wordless/ful Wednesday go HERE!

Because you know you can’t get enough!!

For a more Wordless Wednesday go to 5 Minutes For Mom or Wordless Wednesday.com

And if you’re a fan of my Wordless/ful Wednesdaysplease show your love by letting Twitter know! It would be greatly appreciated and will bring you good Karma!!

I haven’t participated in a Plinky prompt in a long time.  I read them everyday as they pass through my email on the way to the trash can but today’s question stopped me.  ”Share 3 things that are good about your life right now.” Wow! Now thats a little challenging isn’t it?  With the world the way it is today, naming anything good is like finding a needle in your rug.  Impossible until you step on it.  But those good things are there, hiding.  You just have to learn how to see them.  What if you took a moment to look around and see what’s on the other side of your office door? Perhaps a co-worker who is newly pregnant and glowing?  It’s hard not to smile at that. Or what if you shoved the pile of bills or that dust bunny to the left? You might see your kiddos big innocent smile hiding behind it.  I really do feel its healthier look on the brighter side of things.  It’s too easy to focus on the struggles of everyday life and to turn a blind eye to the little things that are there hiding in the back ground making it possible for us to survive each day. The little things are really the engines that run the world because without them we would all slit our wrists or die early deaths from the lack of happy. Without those little things in life that make you crack a small snicker or chuckle and make you want to go on to the next hour of your day can you imagine how terrible it would be? Scary stuff.

This website, and my sense of humor that you’ve gotten to know in it, is an extension of me.  It’s how I look at daily life. I have live a life like everyone else. Full of stress and unhappy moments that I could dwell on and, if I let them, could suck me down into a pit of despair.  But I try to find the humor in things.  Even the smallest things I can find some sort of snort-able character in.  My dad taught me this and I’ll never be more grateful for adopting another personality trait from a parent. And while this ability to find humor in all circumstances can get me in trouble at times, like laughing at funerals, I’ll stick to my guns that it’s the best way to view the world!  Sometimes I’ve been criticized for wearing rose colored glasses.  Well, to that I’ve always said its better to own a pair of rose colored sun glasses, and to know when to wear them, then to own a black umbrella to hide from that rain cloud that follows others around all day. I recommend that everyone should get a pair.

So, with out further blah, blah, blah… I had to pick three things off the top of my head… And that’s a hard thing to do with my sunny outlook… To ONLY pick three…

Obviously my darling daughter!
Everyday she makes me laugh. Even on the hardest of days she can do something silly or sweet that will make that hard outer crust I’ve worn all day crack. Some days she is the only reason I would get out bed. I lay there wondering what it would be like to just stay all warm and tucked in and not face the day and then she starts chattering and playing in her crib. I can hear her talking to herself in her nonsense vocabulary only understanding a word now and then. She will say Mommy or Dada and then “talk” to us for a while. In pretend conversations I imagine. Then during the day, usually when I’m upset she will come running up to me and wrap her little twig arms around my legs and squeeze. She’s so little but can squeeze so tight that she just squeezes the bad feelings right out. While I’d love to say that everyone needs one of these little creatures I would be lying, because I still feel that parents should be screened before being allowed to procreate, but maybe those who are having bad days could just borrow one of these wonder squeezers once in a while.

Thank Goddess for tennis balls!
If it wasn’t for these little fuzzy yellow balls I think I would be a homicidal maniac by now. With all the stresses of daily life, from the economy to finding time to go by bread, it’s nice to be able to go out and smack the crap out of a cute little fuzzy yellow tennis ball. (Ha! Aggressive much?) I love to be able to knock the cute right off that stinkin’ ball. Whacking it so hard the fuzz on the ball shears off and flies through the air. I love to smack it so hard it hits the fence on the other side of the court, sometimes sticking in between the chain links. And I love the feeling of release when I do that. Unfortunately this release of tension isn’t so great for playing actual tennis games because most of the time these fuzzy yellow balls, when hit with such force, won’t behave and land inside the lines, but sometimes we just need to hit outside the lines to feel better. I recommend it to all!

My cat.
She purrs. She snuggles. She demands attention. She gets annoyed when that attention is ignored. She ignores. She gets irritated. She finds happiness in puddles of sunshine on the floor. She makes me smile because she’s the furry four legged version of me.

Shameless Plug:

Please check out my Boogie Wipes Review and Giveaway! Winner receives 3-30 count packages of the best stuff since sliced bread!! Hurry! Giveaway is ending soon!!!!

*

One more Shameless Plug:

Please take moment to vote for me and tell me you think I’m a top mommy blogger! Now THAT would really be the icing on the cake!All you need to do is click the <–-sparkly buttonand then click the option to enter that says I did not trick you into visiting that site. Because I would never do that! And then BAM, your vote will be counted! Thank you!

Love and Kisses!