“Slurp, slurp, slurp…”

“Uh oh! I think I’m busted for drinking my yogurt again.” says the internal voice of an imp.

“Maybe if I smile pretty for Momma she’ll think that I’m just too cute to use my spoon and that half of the cup landed in my lap and is oozing down my leg and about to drip on the carpeted floor.”

…Little Stinker

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The Most Intimidating Creatures On Earth…Babies

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 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 lady 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 too 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 your 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, 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.

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

This is also my 207th post. I guess I missed that big bloggobirthday too.  Balloons and firecrackers for everyone!!!

click any of the images to enlarge

Is it Friday already? Did I completely forget to write ANYTHING this week?  I guess I just haven’t had the ability to make the words flow from my brain to my fingertips.  Or maybe I’ve been PMSing and I was saving you the agony of reading the rants and raves of a hormonal lunatic. Or maybe I was just lazy.  Hmmm. Well, I guess ya’ll will be expecting something good now that I started with a cute cartoon and all.  So with the grocery store theme from the other day I’ll share a little more grocery store humor with you. When EJ was still just a sitter and not really too mobil yet (I really believe there was such a time although it’s hard to remember) I started sitting her on the conveyer belt in the check out lanes with the rest of the groceries. It was like her very own grocery store carnival ride. She would squeal, giggle, and clap all the way to the check out person who would either squeal, giggle, and clap too or snarl something at me that I would just tune out. (Because I’m THAT self centered mom, only focused on my kids happiness because I suck, and because people just need to lighten up… really…)

Speaking of lighting up, while I was also getting dirty looks from all the other super moms in the store who’s carts are filled with organics while mine was filled with Ramin Noodles (my kid loves Ramin Noodles, what more can I say except for “HELLO!!” CHEAP!), my daughter was having the time of her life! And as a bonus for me, it kept her from grabbing everything off the candy shelves. It also provided a wonderful opportunity for distraction when necessary. That way I could get her to release the death grip she may have had on other items she snagged throughout the store. By check out these items were one conveyer belt ride away from freedom from her little grabby hands without WW3 happening.

Maybe the reason my daughter is kinda weird, in a good way of course, is because her Momma is? Hmmm. I can handle that. She also has a thing for the plastic bags from the produce department. If I put an onion in the bag and tie it off and hand it to her its like giving her a diamond. She loves onions.

Conversations with Moms is hosting a great  giveaway sponsored by My Blog Spark!  The winner will receive a Honey Kix Cereal Prize Pack including a coupon for a FREE Box of Honey Kix Cereal, a cool Honey Kix container, the matching bowl, a nifty on-the-go container that keeps your beverage cool, and a honey container!   This giveaway ends August 9th, 2009 so don’t miss out on your opportunity for a chance to win this great giveaway.

For a long time now I have seen these ads on TV, as I’m sure many of you have also, about this delicious, yummy, OH MY GODDESS my taste buds just melted into writhing puddles of goo called Yoplait Whips.  I know, your saying to yourselves right now that Mommy’s Joy has really lost it this time.  Going on about, of all things, yogurt.  Either that or Tornado Baby has finally succeeded in sucking our her last brain cell.  But you see, it’s not just the light fluffy yogurt I’m going on about, it’s the light fluffy yogurt and how skirt flipping delicious it is when you FREEZE IT!

I finally paid close attention those ads! Cross that with non-stop 100+ weather and my brain zeroed in on the word “freeze” like it was crack.  Now I have a treat in my arsenal of PMS treats that is better than crack! Frozen Yoplait Whips!  After actually remembering to write it down on my grocery list, and then turning my daughter into a baby popsicle while browsing the cold grocery fridge for flavors that I wanted to taste test, I picked out strawberry and a chocolate mousse.  When I got home I popped them in the freezer and forgot about them for a couple days.  Then Saturday evening I was sitting around on the couch thinking how great it would be to eat a gallon of ice cream and my head went DING! Frozen Whips!  So I grabbed one and gave it a try.  It was the best decision I made all week!  First off it was easy because I didn’t have to fight a glacier hard rock to scoop some out into a bowl. All I had to do was grab a spoon.  Then I tasted it….  Again! OH MY GODESS!!  It was almost better than ice cream since it had that yummy “zingy” flavor that yogurt has along with all the creaminess.  My daughter loved it too since she was going nuts trying to get mommy to feed her the next bite.  But Mommy was mean and prevailed to at least get every other bite in her own mouth.  And it was really plenty.  I didn’t feel like I needed to eat a gallon of ice cream after that little yogurt cup.  And ya know what? Even if I felt like diving into another cup of it they are only 140 calories and 2.5 grams of fat.  Compare that to a regular serving of strawberry ice cream that has at least 6 grams of fat (if you can stick to the 1/2 cup serving and who can really ever do that) and you can justify eating two.  That’s my excuse but you’re welcome to use it.

I want it known that I was not paid nor asked to advertise for Yoplait yogurt.  I just fell in love with their frozen Whips product and couldn’t help sharing what I learned with everyone else.  If you can’t share the scoop on the best non-scoop ice cream(ish) product around that what can you share?   So get up off your chairs and couches right now and go write it down on your grocery list before you forget.  Do it…. Right now!  Then try them out and then come back here and tell me how awesome you think these are!!!

I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and say that she didn’t really like her noodles.

Or maybe she just liked them too much?

All I know is I snorted a really nice white wine out my nose when I saw her!

PS. Please excuse my new use of watermarks on my photos. I hope they don’t distract from your enjoyment but I’ve had a picture of my darlin’ EJ stolen by a turd and placed on another turdy site without asking me or having prior permission. This kind of turdy-ness is not excused and has forced me to be more careful.

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After the first night of feeding her sitting on my lap (because she just wasn’t going to sit anywhere unless trapped in her seat) we devised a nice camp feeding station.  Take two small tables, one for eating on and one to place behind her chair so she couldn’t push back and topple over.  (Learned that the hard way.) Apply same table covers used at restaurants to camp table, and hold corners down with duct tape. (Because I may be a little redneck but I spent way too many years in the restaurant industry. And I know how clean those tables really are. Yuck.) And voila! One happily fed bar-be-que loving baby!

What’s better then a little mac and cheese and watermelon?  And yes, we used the hose to spray her off after lunch… and she loved it!

“Honey, get your foot off the table. And that goes for both of you!”

“OK, now your just being sassy.”

“I think I’m going to eat that yellow flower now…”

Is she too young to teach her to eat with her mouth closed?  Cuz really honey, you’re going to get food everywhere.

“I think I’m kinda sticky Mom”

That’s because you didn’t eat with your mouth closed honey. See, Mommy knows…

“Waitress, wet wipes please!”

Happy 1st Birthday my baby girl. I love you!

Wordless/full Wednesday everyone!

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“Wat Mama?”  

“Dat’s weer da geen beens go!”

While we’ve been really good about eating our veggies, the “geen beens” have had to be “cheesafied” so she stops putting them in her cup holder and not eating them.  Apparenly, when the puppies aren’t around to “help” her clean her tray she’s decided that her cup holder is the perfect place to put things she doesn’t want to eat. In the pictures above I caught her mid work as she was placing bean by bean into the holder. 

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This is her first taste.  Notice the little nibble off the butt end.

AND JUST LIKE THAT! She’s hooked.  This is her second taste.  A big ole’ lick. 

A few minutes and licks later she figured out that the head of the Peep really needed to be removed. Chomp!  Bye, bye chicken.

Then we needed a bath…

A little while later EJ was literally shaking a little from all the sugar and “Tornado Baby” went from a solid F3 to a whopping F5 just like that.  It was all fun to watch and I was so proud to pass on our tradition.  Eating the heads of Peeps at Easter.  

Happy Wordless Wednesday!  Ok, so maybe a little wordy.  Deal with it.  :-)

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