Playmat for Brooks = Yogamat for Me

When I was exclusively nursing Brooks he ate ALL the time and I was burning about 500 extra calories a day. I had to give up gluten and dairy, so my diet was a little limited and whatever I could eat within my parameters I did. At about 7 months I was able to introduce gluten back and a month later dairy. Unfortunately he strated nursing less and I didn't change my eating.

After going down 4 sizes in clothes I had gone back up one. I was SO upset, but still wasn't able to change my eating. Namely sugar. Sugar has ALWAYS been my Achilles heel. It took me a week to cut back on my sugar. Yeah I couldn't go cold turkey, but I set a goal date and said only sugar every other day. Today is the start day and I didn't have any sugar. Woot!!!

I also started doing some exercise today. I don't really worry about working out too much because I'm always running after two babies or lifting two babies in their carriers, which weigh about 30 pounds each or carrying two babies which weigh almost 20 pounds each. My arms are starting to look really nice. My mid section is so flabby its crazy and beyond embarrqassing.

Short story long. Today is my start over day, no sugar and a work out. We have a foam mat in the living room for the babies and on demand with exercise videos. OK no excuses. 5 days a week for the next forever.

Interview with a Babysitter

Brooks will have his first non family or friend baby sitter tomorrow night. I asked some friends for recommendations and was given this name. I called her and did an "interview" that went something like this:

Me: Do you have experience with infants?
sitter: Not really, but I've helped my mom in the 2 year old room at the preschool, and I have a bunch of younger cousins.
Me: Close enough, he's sorta like a 2 year old, except that his mobility is different, oh and the communication. You'll be fine.

Brooks is really laid back, so I'm not too concerned. Plus we'll only be 10 minutes away at a party. Perhaps I'm too laid back, but when I relayed the story to John he was on board.

Now I have to clean my house as if I had a picky mother in law and she was coming to visit. I don't want the sitter to think that I don't have time to clean my house (which I don't). Also I apparently need to get some food for her, we have no snacks in the house except popcorn and we don't have a microwave. Maybe I should pick up paper towels too just in case. I don't want to scare her.

Two Farmers Markets - Yes Please

We LOVE our town's farmer's market. It's amazing and we can get almost all of our week's groceries there. The only downside is that it's weekly and sometimes we need produce for the end of the week. Enter in the Anselma Farmer's and Artisans' Market.

Anselma had their grand opening yesterday, yup ladies and gents on a Wednesday. That means I can still get organic and locally grown produce in the middle of the week. It also means that if we are out of town on the weekend (like this past weekend) we can get our produce.

I picked up some raspberries and Brooks tore them up!! Did you know that raspberries mixed with water that run down your leg looks like dried blood? It took forever to clean him up, but he really enjoyed them.

Bumblebee Ass

I tried to post this yesterday, but I couldn't log onto Blogger. So here is yesterday's post.

Sorry I've been MIA for a few days, we've had a whirlwind time and unfortunately a funeral. But I'm back and boy do I have a story today.

Miss K was being a challenge today and refusing to sleep. So I decided to run some errands since I didn't have to worry about waking them both. We get to the first stop, I grabbed a cart and put Miss K in, I go around to Brooks' door and it's locked. I reached for my fob and push the button, the whole car unlocks, I try his door again, and it's still locked. I look in the window and the lock button thing on Brooks' door can't go up any further due to the suction cup of the shade.

I try to reach across Miss K's car seat base and can't reach it. So I go to the driver's side and crawl through, I reach the handle on his door and open it, but the child safety lock is on, you have GOT to be kidding me. I crawled a little farther in and pulled off some of the suction cups but couldn't reach the one culprit. JESUS! This is like a bad sitcom. So there I am my yellow ass all over the windshield. Finally I reach just a little more and the suction cup comes off, the door immediately unlocks and I'm able to rescue my son and what's left of my dignity.

Second Craft Project of the Week

I have NO idea where this burst of creativity came from, but it happened. We were invited to a friend's third birthday and I wanted to make her a present since they might be bigger hippies than we are. The idea actually came from my mother.

Honestly the hardest and most time consuming part was figuring out how to manufacture everything. Once I got that figured out the whole process took about 15 minutes. To do it you'll need the following:
5/8" dowel - cut to 18 inches
1.5" ribbon
5/8" ribbon
double sided tape

I cut the 5/8" ribbon to 36" and did 4 strands
1" piece of 1.5" ribbon

Take the 4 strands and place the middle in the center of the dowel,













Take the contrasting piece of ribbon and put it in the middle of the dowel , secure it using the double sided tape.





Then take the 1.5" ribbon and wrap it VERY tightly around the dowel. I used a piece of tape at the base and about half way up to give a little more security.



Once you get to the top wrap twice around the top of the dowel and secure with a piece of tape. Then tie the strands in a single knot. And voila!! a wand, a gymnastics rhythm ribbon, whatever you want to call it.

Martha Stewart Better Watch Out

I might give her a run for her money. Remember last week when I posted about my plumbing fiascal? Well, I fixed it. Yeah, that's right I'm a rock star. I also added a valve, and a strap so that the handle thingy works with the stopper, so that no more bouncy balls can get caught in the drain pipe. These are all technical terms too.

The same day I worked my plumbing magic I saved a pair of shorts from ruin. Strawberries had gotten smushed all over them and I really thought they were unsalvageable. I decided to soak them in cold water in the bath tub, by that evening the stain was gone. THEN......that evening I had some chocolate chips left and decided to make some chocolate covered strawberries.

On TOP of all of this, I made my niece's birthday present. A fabulous dinosaur tail in pink and green. It has not photographed well, and has been compared in photos to a strap on, so I shan't include a photo, but a link to the blog where I got the directions. HERE It was so much easier than I expected and only took me about 2 hours start to finish and I am NOT a good sewer. I think if I had better scissors I would have saved 30 minutes. Lesson learned.

THEN, because I am really just THIS awesome. I framed and then hung Brooks' 6 month photos over the fireplace. And started a 2nd craft project.

OK, so I didn't mean for this to be a Mary-Tyler is so awesome post, but I really needed a pick me up, and except for shopping, praise is a great way to accomplish it. I'll post pictures of the 2nd craft project tomorrow, because it's adorable, if it works!!

Appaman at Target

I read a lot of kids fashion blogs, but didn't see anyone mention this fabulous collaboration, Appaman and Target!!!! Hello, lovey, and all under $20......AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I picked up this fab number for Brooks for $9.99.

One disclaimer. I had orginally purchase it in grey, but had to return it after a hole developed after the first wash. They no longer had the grey in his size, so I picked up the blue one. I'm also a huge fan of the two piece ensemble and may go back and pick it up.

I'm not in the market for girls clothes but they have some great stuff for the little misses too. I mean how cute is this, totally frilly, yet a little punk with the motorcycles on the bloomers, I want one in my size, although that's a little scary.

Sticking to My Day Job

After the girls left a few weeks ago we noticed a bouncy rubber ball in the bathroom. I don't know why we didn't just throw it away, but we didn't and it was placed behind the faucet. A few days after they left I took off my glasses and put them behind the faucet, agitating the bouncy ball and it fell into the sink, circled the drain and got stuck.

We thought this was not a big deal, it went in, it will easily come out, right?...... Um wrong! In our attempts to extract the ball we pushed it down further, we even tried to float it out. OK so no big deal, just unscrew the drain and it will come out. Our crescent was too small so we had to wait to borrow one.

Every time I would go to work on it, Brooks was asleep on the other side of the wall, so it waited. Last night I said no more, I'm taking care of this NOW! Monkey wrench in hand I start to unscrew the drain. I get it almost completely unhooked from the sink but it won't budge the last little bit. OK, not a big deal, I'll unscrew the U-bend and then we'll be good. One twist of the wrench and I hear CRACK. The entire U-bend cracked. Dammit! OK still not the end of the world, that's easy to fix, I start to unhook it from the drain pipe when I hear and feel *CRACK, SNAP*, the U-bend had snapped off the drain pipe. Shit

I call John to admire my handy work and he assures me that this is still not big deal, and he was right. I ended up unhooking the drain pipe too, so now we just need to go to he hardware store and get the replacements.

One things for sure the guys on This Old Home have no fear of me taking their job, nor the plumbers union having a new applicant.

My First Mother's Day

My puppies and cat have always celebrated Mother's Day for me. This year I had my first human baby Mother's day and it was especially nice. Homemade waffles, lunch out, then we headed to my in-laws to surprise John's mom. So low-key and nice.

Conversely Miss K, gave her mom quite the run on her first Mother's Day. I got this text around 4pm, "Miss K has no officially bathed in not only Bloomingdales but Wegmans also. Maybe she needs to do a a blog about the best bathrooms in the area to take a bath." SOOOOO funny

What We've Been Doing with Our Thursday Nights

Swim lessons. You know because little ones are like sponges, harharhar. Half of me wonders why we did it and the other half of me is really enjoying it. It’s not as though Brooks is going to learn to swim and take this valuable life tool with him forever yet. No, it’s all about the fun and the family time and getting him acclimated.

Of course he’s very advanced. We’re supposed to play on the edge for a bit before getting in, Brooks just likes to take headers in. He does do an excellent job of reaching for the wall once we swim back from our exercise and pulls himself up (almost all on his own) onto the ledge.

I brought our underwater camera with us tonight and got a few shots. They aren’t fabulous, but it shows just how much fun he’s having. I wish that when he is 15 and sullen that he could take a little part of the happiness he has right now, but that’s a pipe dream, or a really mediocre science fiction movie.

He Better Be a Damn Good Baseball Player

With all the hitting that he’s been doing recently it’s the only good thing I can see. He will not leave Miss K alone! He wants to pull her hair, stick his fingers in her eyes, or ears or mouth. He also doesn’t have very good control over the strength of his arms and he just smacks things, including, but not limited to my face, John’s face, the dogs, the cat, Miss K, the floor, the table, I could go on forever.
We just can’t seem to distract him when he gets on a hitting whim. No toy or song is good enough. We’re both so frustrated. John even put him in a time out today; I had done this a few weeks ago too. It’s so ineffective and he has NO idea what’s going on, but it’s for our sanity. Making him sit (or go in his jumpy chair) take him away from his target. He’s never distracted for long; he definitely has some hyper focusing going on.

This morning I was the recipient of a hard and direct smack to the bridge of my nose. Brooks of course looked so pleased with himself after waking me with such undeviating attention.

Anyone have any ideas on how to cope with this? Is it just a phase that he’ll grow out of? Does this mean he’s going to hit baseballs out of the park like Babe Ruth and buy us a nice apartment in NYC where we can retire?

Of course this "milestone" was completely usurped by his taking his first steps today. He's been cruising for quite sometime, but he really starting moving today. He still needs some assistance, but not for long. His little legs are so strong, and I know right now it's just a confidence thing. Thankfully Miss K isn't mobile, she is allowed to be as mobile as she wants in 5 weeks when her Mommy is done with school.

Bathed at Bloomingdales

WARNING: This is a poop story, a funny poop story though.
The weather was especially crappy today, high of 53 and rainy, so I decided to take the kids to the mall. I had some gift cards and it was about time to fill in some gaps in Brooks’ summer wardrobe. On top of all of that goodness a friend texted me this morning to see if I wanted to meet for lunch. Wahoo, shopping and lunch with a friend.
We get to the mall around 11:15 for our scheduled lunch date at 11:30. Right as we are pulling into the mall Miss K starts howling. Not crying, but screeching at the top of her lungs and the apparent set she borrowed somewhere. I park and get the double stroller out ASAP and get her out of her seat. As soon as I pick her up I realize she is desperate need of a diaper change. Not a problem I had built this into our timing. I grab Brooks, all the while Miss K is still howling. She had eaten only an hour prior, but was apparently still hungry, fortunately she’s such a big girl she can hold her own bottle now!!
We get inside the mall and I go into Bloomingdales to A) use their restroom, B) peruse their shoe selection and C) check out if they have any infant Burberry (which they did). We go straight to the restroom and I bring Miss K up onto the changing table and start the changing process. This is when I discover she has exploded out of her diaper. Now as a cloth diaper user this is a random occurrence, but I was prepared, (sort of) with a change of clothes.
The explosion was so forceful she is covered down one leg past her knee. I didn’t discover the full extent though since it was front and back until after I had laid her on the mat and had begun to change her clothes. Since I didn’t realize how bad things were, poop was now everywhere. I decided to start from scratch. Once she was stripped down I took her over to the sink and bathed her. Brought her back and cleaned off the mat while holding a naked baby in one arm. Placed her back down and got her a new diaper and clothes.
I didn’t think much of it until I was relaying the story and realized just how comical it actually is. Several people walked in and out while we were there. Although the bathing was done behind closed doors (the handicap stall has a large private sink so I used that), the changing mat is in the main area of the restroom. I can only imagine what was going through people’s heads. Oh well, I had a clean and happy baby once again.

How Much SHOULD a 9 month old eat?

I have no idea the answer to this question. Brooks is still nursing several times a day (5-7), but the dude eats like a horse. One day for breakfast last week he ate, an egg, ¼ of an avocado, ½ cup of strawberries and a banana. He doesn’t eat like this all the time, but it’s not unusual.

Upon returning from our camping trip we had nothing thawed in the house, so we decided to continue our mini vacation to one of my favorite restaurants, Hooters. Normally this is not the place who find synonymous with my name, but I LOVE Hooters 3-mile Island chicken wings, and since I can have gluten and dairy again it was such a nice treat.

We decided to order Brooks something off the children’s menu since there was so much heat in the sauce. Got the dude 5 chicken wings, figured he’d eat two and the banana we brought him. We fed him the banana first and gave him some of his O’s while we waited for our food. Once it got there John and I pulled the chicken off the bones and broke it into smaller pieces. Brooks couldn’t get to it soon enough, he was a man on a mission, a man who had “hiked” 5 miles that morning and needed to recharge. He ended up eating all 5 of the chicken wings, sans the skin. He eats like a 3 year old, and he’ll eat just about anything. I hope this continues for forever and eating isn’t a battle at every meal *fingers crossed*.

Here he is lounging in his high chair at Hooters.

You did WHAT!?!?!

We went camping, I'm not talking about a camper, cottage, yurt, RV, teepee, etc, I'm talking a tent. That's camping to me. In case you didn't know it before John and I are crazy, we love doing things that push us to our boundaries, like having a child. On a whim we decided we needed to get out of town, there's always our standby of NYC, but we never relax while there. We decided on a change of pace, packed up the tent, 3 dogs and our 9 month old and went to the wilderness.

We found a state park about 2 hours from us that would allow the dogs and had some nice hiking trails. Bought some last minute necessities like marshmallows, graham crackers and a Hershey bar and left. Brooks and the dogs slept the whole way (there is a God). Once there we staked out our little plot and proceeded to unpack. We then walked around and discovered we were the only people in a tent. John built us a nice fire and we cooked burgers and roasted corn on the cob (OMG so tasty!!).



Brooks seemed to love the outdoors, except the dirt, unless he's eating it he doesn't want to touch it, crawl on it, not even have the grass tickle his feet. He was contented to stay on the blanket though, which was a nice change of pace from our usual wild man. We garnered a lot of attention from our fellow "campers" as they walked by, a lot of questions were asked about our previous experiences, had the baby been camping before, are the dogs well behaved, etc.. We assured everyone that we sorta of knew what we were doing, but were just throwing caution to the wind. And our throwing worked. We only had a few hiccups, the electric pump was too high a voltage for our car adapter, so I had to blow the air mattress up myself. We discovered Geraldine has molars of steel as she chewed through her leash that tethered her to a tree. And finally we didn't sleep too well, the three of us and three dogs piled onto a full sized air mattress that we thought was a queen.

After a rough night's sleep we leisurely pulled ourselves together, ate our oatmeal and packed up our camp. Our neighbor's strolled by to gawk check on us and we assured them that we were alright, still in tact and ready to go hiking. Which we did. We didn't make it the whole 8 miles like we had hoped, but we did 5. I'm pretty impressed since John and I were both carrying an extra 25 pounds, he with Nanette and Geraldine and me with Pappagano.

John said he hadn't seem me so relaxed outside of out visits to Baton Rouge, and he was right. I had everything that I needed and wanted without the desire to do a thousand things. I just relaxed and enjoyed time with our little family. I might even go camping again, this time we need a bigger bed though.