Hold Me

Happy Holidays!

I felt like such a kid earlier this month when I was making my Christmas list.  Until I realized that per my list, I am actually a geriatric.  I asked for orthodic athletic shoes since I had plantar fasciitis this year, a sun hat, lest the sun harm my alabaster skin, high waisted work out pants because love handles, and a car seat.  I'm 100 but with babies.

LOTS of QT with this two this week.

I've never understood why people say they get so stressed out about the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For me, it's the week after Christmas when there is no school for your kids that is truly a scary time of year. 

In an interesting turn of events, Katie is now the hilarious easy child while Jack has developed a second personality that, quite frankly, is an asshole.  I think I'm allowed to call me own child an asshole, right?  He also basically didn't give a shit about Santa during the whole entire month of December and now calls out for him to come back all day, presumably to make me feel bad.  At least he's still sweet half the time.

Katie started waking up at 5:30AM this week, Jack won't go to sleep until 9:00PM, and we have nothing to do all day.  My bloodstream still consists of 50% white wine and 50% pimento cheese from the holidays, so I'm fresh out of steam.  I did attempt my first post Christmas workout yesterday and I think at least a gallon of straight Sauvy B came out of my pores.  It's going to be a long week folks. 

Last night I got so excited about this fortuitous dwarfing of my wine cup in the dishwasher.  Now I can funnel it right down my throat...Send help.

But next week/2017 is when I dominate life.  Hopefully.  I'm 100% never having another child and I didn't have a baby that year so I'll be fresh out of excuses not to be a dime piece.  Until then, instead of finding $20 bills from last year in my coat pockets, I'm finding year old snotty tissues from my kids, which is a fitting metaphor for life now.

I hope the kids' teachers aren't alarmed when I run and jump into their arms next week when school starts again. 

Dreams really do come true

I, Marilyn, along with my sister Nancy, am finally going to see Mariah Carey in concert.

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It's been over 7 years in the making which involved a lot of highs: http://www.divasayswhat.com/2009/12/i-dreamed-dream.html link

And lows: http://www.divasayswhat.com/2009/12/butterfly-masacre.html link 

And a temporary boycott of Mariah because her ticket prices were absolutely insane.

And two not age appropriate memberships to the Honey B Fly fan club for access to pre sale tickets.

But it's really, really happening!

May 21 in Charlotte is the fateful date. I've got floor seats and enough excitement to make me explode...Now I just have to wait 5 months, find a place to stay, get a plane ticket for my sister, drive fours hours  to get there, and figure out who will parent my children the following Monday morning.  And that's it!

Mimi we are coming for you!

I think you have the wrong person

Current status: On the verge of a casual breakdown/in need of hibernation. 

Reasons:

Husbands. Can't live with them...end of sentence.

If I got paid a dollar for every time I found this scene in the shower when I got in for one of my world famous luxurious 45 second showers before the kids start really crying in their beds in the morning, I would have enough money to pay for the golf lesson that my husband took during his lunch break this week while I was sitting at home wrangling 2 little kids like a damn chump thinking he was hard at work.

Does anyone else's husband make a secondary pile of laundry on the floor next to the actual laundry basket? What godforsaken event could have occurred with these clothes to make them unworthy of sitting in the same basket as the regular dirty clothes?

On second thought, forget I asked.

I have decided I want to be more like a two year old and just do the most random shit ever. I already dress like one. I might as well act like one too. If they don't make any sense, why should I?! These are my people, after all.

This is a picture of Jack today while Katie was taking her morning nap.  He decided a ninja turtle helmet was absolutely necessary for consuming a quarter of a box of uncooked ninja turtle macaroni noodles. I know I could have stepped in to stop him or cook them, but there is a 100% guarantee that if I put time and effort into his food, he won't eat it. So I let him crunch away. 

I'ma be real with you. 

Somehow I thought that by the time I was in my 30's I would be rich, thin, and seemingly ageless. Something went terribly wrong.  I am currently 400 pounds over my "ideal" weight. I have no spare change. I am literally always tired. And I have stitches in my face because I wanted to get facelift at the plastic surgeon but all I could afford was to get two moles removed.

Later that day I went to the store to get something even though Grant offered to go. I was thinking that I should probably care a lot more about running into people with blood coming out of my face band aids. But my choices were that, or staying at home with the kids for the 2,000th hour of the day while Grant went. Naturally I chose to go scare the general public with my Frankenstein face.

The other day I bought a light bulb that was shockingly expensive.  I said to the sales woman, "Well, at least it lasts for 20 years." To which she responded, "Yes, you will never need another lightbulb again."  So, basically, I look like I'm 70?  Next time I will spring for the facelift.

Life is great and I am so lucky to have two adorable, funny, sweet kids and a hard working, involved husband. Trust me, I know that.  But damn life is intense right now. Half the time I am looking at my kids wondering how I got so lucky to have such good little angels. And the other half of the time I am getting yelled out because I couldn't fit all the play doh in Mr. Potato Head's butt,while counting down the seconds until either my husband comes home or until it is socially acceptable to start drinking. Unfortunately the latter always comes first. 

Maybe my 40's are when the smooth part of life begins. Until then, play doh and wine on repeat. 

I saw this picture in a magazine today.  They are selling David Yurman jewelry and absolute bull shit.

Oh My Adulthood

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Wow.  Life.  It's gotten a little intense.

It has me asking all these questions like:

Am I a bad mom because I am only truly content when my kids are sleeping?

How can I lose 15 pounds while also drinking all the wine and eating only carbs?

When will I ever actually have a good nights sleep again?

How the FUCK do people have more than 2 kids?

You know, sweet stuff like that.

Adulthood is a tricky little bitch.  Adulthood is a series of lame victories like saving $400 on car insurance, only to then receive a $500 bill for medical expenses from your husbands vasectomy the very same day.  Adulthood is being totally ok with that damn unexpected bill because $500 is way less scary than having a 3rd child.  Plus I would spend way more than that on the wine I would have to drink to survive having another child.

And if adulthood is a tricky bitch, than parenthood is it's slutty little mistress.  So fun, so exciting, so new, but sooooo much baggage.

And by baggage I meant literal bags of human excrement.  All day every day.  The day I get to toss one of my diaper pails is going to be a good day.  It means I will be hauling 50% less human feces to the garbage every week!  Yay!  But I am far from that day.  The only progress I have had potty training Jack so far is when he wanted to go potty AFTER pooping in his diaper (unbeknownst to me) twice.  Which was messy.  And then saying, "I need treat" 4,fucking,000,000 times after that.

Parenthood also means thinking you are going to save money to buy a bigger house soon because your kids' shit is absoutely exploding from everywhere and your in laws have to sleep on the couch when they visit, but then realizing that spending your money on entertaining your kids and unloading them at preschool three days a week is WAY more life changing than more square footage, or even groceries for that matter.

The crazy thing about having two kids is that there is no such thing as down time anymore.  You can't pawn the one kid off on your spouse to be free because now there is always, always this OTHER kid that needs things.  And she can't walk or talk or eat sandwiches, despite how much she wants to, so you always have to hold her or make sure she doesn't swallow more than the safe amount of Play Doh and it's just absolutely exhausting.

So when your husband comes home, has a beer, then says he has a dry throat, then has a glass of wine, then says he needs to go to bed at 7pm without helping put the kids to bed, it isn't the best.  But then when he reappears when the kids go to bed to say that he thinks he has enough energy to eat half of a brownie, it's kind of the worst.  But it also means that you get the rest of the bottle of wine and to be alone for the rest of the night.  Which, if you are anything like me, is the closest you will get to paradise for the next decade.  So you sit back, drink that damn wine, watch that beautiful TV, and never forget that there is a half of a brownie somewhere in the kitchen.

And for today, that's enough.

 

Surprise! You're a parent

Parenthood is full of surprises.  And I'm not just talking about the surprise of how much you will love your child.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I saw that coming.  I'm talking about the other "surprises" that affect your general being in ways you never could have expected.

Some of things that have taken me by surprise since becoming a parent are the following:

- The line at Chik Fila is never, ever, ever not long.  Even at 3pm when you think you will beat the crowd.  Even at 10:20 before they even start serving lunch.  But especially at 11:30 when you have a hangry toddler in the back seat crying for his "milky".  And of course at 5:30 when you want to get your kid and babysitter dinner and you show back up to your house after the babysitter gets there and just before you've eaten all your kids' fries.

- How long you can hold your bladder without peeing in your pants.  When you are out on the town with a toddler who has learned how to crawl under the bathroom stalls and away from you, you have a 30 second window to use the bathroom before they stop thinking toilet paper rolls are fun and flee the scene.  When you have a baby and a toddler, you are just totally screwed and might have to hold it until you become nauseous.

- You really need only 3 hours of good sleep to survive life.  And if you get 5+ you are Sleeping Beauty.

- Kids really do say the darnedest things.  Just this week I had Jack point out every single one of my spider veins on my legs and say, "Oh no, boo boo!"  And then a separate young child asked my if I was having a baby because my "tummy was so big".  I shutter at the thought of a full vocabulary from two children and the sweet things they might say to me then. 

- Toddlers are selfish monsters.  What's theirs is theirs and what's yours is definitely also theirs.  I could spend all afternoon making Jack a kid friendly meal for dinner that he usually loves.  But he will feed it to the dog in a heartbeat if it means he can steal my lettuce.

- As much as you can enjoy your children, when they are both asleep at the same time, there is no greater feeling of accomplishment in life.  And then the exact moment you sit down, one wakes up.

And finally,

- There simply isn't enough wine in the world. 

The surprises keep coming!!

Mother of two

Here are some things I've learned since having a second child.

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First of all, when you are trying to get ready to go somewhere, two kids is basically 100 kids.  It is chaos.  And someone always poops just when you think you are ready to walk out the door.

Second, and most of all, priorities and standards change.  A lot.

I specifically remember a morning when I was trying to get pregnant a few years ago and I accidentally exploded a smoothie all over my kitchen.  I was already overly emotional so I cried.  Then Rosie came to me and I thought she was going to be my spirit animal and hug me in her dog way.  But she just licked the smoothie off of my head.

Now if I can get shat on, boogerfied, and spill a fresh made meal on the floor before noon, I consider that a slow day.

Also, and this is more of a public acknowledgment of appearance, it is not lost on me that my kids are always dressed in pretty cute clothes and I walk around with them looking like an unshowered homeless person who has kidnapped them from their more put together mother.

Finally, free time is an absolute thing of the past.  Hence the radio silence on the blog.  Usually it isn't until 2:30 in the afternoon when both kids are asleep at the same time and then I just end up falling asleep in whatever chair I'm sitting in.

If I work out twice a week now I feel empowered.  If I sleep past 6:30 I consider that a miracle.  Things change.  Your body changes.  I feel like my stomach looks like an after picture of a Biggest Loser contestant before they have skin removal surgery.  And my belly button looks like what I imagine a 6 month old baby elephant's anus looks like.

I'm a model.

All this is to say that I'm obsessed with my kids and I plan on "getting my body back" in  about 2 years when Katie is in school too and I have some time to myself.  For now I'm enjoying the kids, being balls deep in diapers and dookie, and loving life!

Baby Daddy Gold

Anyone who has been reading my blog since the beginning might remember a few posts I did about the mind blowingly amazing observations that my husband Grant made about my outfits.

 

Well, he's back.  And it's still unintentionally hilarious, but this time about babies.  Here is a list of a few gems I've heard in the last 6 weeks of Katie's life:

 

1) I asked him a few weeks back to do a little tummy time with Katie while I fed Jack dinner at my parents' house.  His response was, "I really don't feel like taking my shirt off right now in front of everyone."

 

Apparently Grant thinks that tummy time is the same thing as skin to skin contact.  But the fact that he didn't even give it an outright NO at the time is commendable.

 

2) When Jack was little he slept in a Rock N' Play for one week and then I started putting him in the crib, never really rocking him, he always went straight to sleep, and I never looked back.  I kept telling Grant how nervous I was that Katie doesn't like the crib at all and I can't just throw her in there and make her sleep for a few hours.

 

To which he told me, "Marilyn, she's not a crock pot!"

 

I am still trying to make her a crock pot.  But it's not happening.

 

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3) One of my sweet friends who also had a baby recently sent me some delicious lactation cookies which were actually extremely delicious.  Grant, AKA the Cookie Monster, couldn't resist them and started eating a few.  When I told him they were lactation cookies he freaked out, "Am I going to start leaking milk out of my nipples!?"

 

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This reminded me of a friend in college who read on her birth control that "stopping this medicine may cause pregnancy" and thought that meant that she would experience immaculate conception just from not taking the medicine.

 

4) Someone dropped some bows off at our door from the church a few weeks back.  I showed them to Grant and said they were cute.  He asked me, "What are these?"  He literally didn't know what a bow was.  A true child of 4 boys.  I can't wait until the first time Katie paints his nails over a cup of pretend tea.

 

I have an amazing picture somewhere of my dad wearing lots of clips in his hair.  Which he agreed too only for a back rub when I was younger.  Although I'm sure he would still go for that deal now.  The man is a sucker for a back rub.

 

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5) That time he told me he was tired.  He started talking and I truly couldn't hear him because of the vent in the bathroom, but I told him straight up, "I feel like you are going to start comparing our levels of tired, and that is just not a safe place to go right now". 

 

You have to be honest in a relationship, lest you get the urge to cut a bitch in his full nights sleep after you've woken up 5 times already.

 

 

Side note: They say the second child gets screwed and just has to do whatever the older child does and adhere to his schedule, but this is a picture of my oldest child playing with a flyswatter on top of a collapsed empty box of diapers while his little sister sleeps.  I'd say the neglect goes both ways.

 

 

What a Relief

 

 

According to my sources, AKA US Weekly, Mariah Carey never has to worry about money again now that she is engaged to a billionaire.

 

 

Thank goodness.  I was worried about the poor girl.  According to my research she only has a net worth of $520 million so it is a good thing her Prince Charming came along when he did!

 

This reminds me a lot of when Ricky Martin came out of the closet, which I never knew he was in.  Not exactly hard hitting news.

That was a doozy

Well I basically just got to live out every girl's fantasy: Trying on formal wear 4 weeks post partum.  I have a bad cold and my baby, who I once thought was a miracle baby because she slept for 6 hours straight two times, decided to wake up every 2 hours last night.  So I was in no way physically or emotionally prepared for this shopping experience.

 

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I mean, I knew I wasn't exactly looking slim right now.  But holy hell.  The lighting was not my friend.  I looked like some sort of indistinguishable fat sack in most dresses.  I almost lost all hope when I stumbled upon what can only be described as the Quinceañera department of Dillard's.  But thankfully there were some more conservative options in the adjacent old lady section. 

 

I ended up with two options.  One I'm almost 99% sure I will see a senior citizen also wearing at the event next weekend, probably looking way more fly than me.  The other was more than I've ever spent on a dress ever but I think I could actually wear again.  So it's pretty much a win-win.

 

I can justify spending more money on the second dress with the rationale of: Oh wait...I don't give a shit how much this cost because you are making me go to a formal event 4 weeks after birthing your baby.  But also it's kind of pretty.

 

Long story short: thank God for Spanx.

 

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Wine > Fear

I really didn't think I'd ever have the courage to take both kids out to a store together for a long, long time...and then I ran out of wine.

 

So I did it!  I took both kids to the grocery store, got my wine, beer, milk, and Diet Dr. Pepper,and no one had a meltdown.  It was a major victory.  And I didn't even buy a single solid food.

 

I'm sure someone was judging me somewhere because it was less than 40 degrees, I didn't get a single food item for my kids, and I was wearing a flannel shirt that made me look like a Latina cleaning lady.  But I got my wine damnit, and that has made all the difference.

 

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I'm not going to start shopping on the reg with both kids by any means because it is too nerve wracking and because I think I already need shoulder surgery from carrying both of them at the same time.  But for today, I am basically super woman (with a slight Chardo buzz).

Kids Before Bros

I have read blogs and articles in the past from women saying they keep their marriages strong by putting their husbands first above all else, even their children.

 

If you know any of these women, call Child Services immediately.  They are definitely neglecting their children.  I'm pretty sure I won't have another intelligent conversation with my husband for at least 6 months.

 

Having 2 kids is no joke. 

 

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We did actually speak in passing today, discussing how the 11th anniversary of our first date is coming up next week.  Then we realized if we had never met one of us might actually get to watch the Super Bowl in its entirety or even go out in public and watch it at an establishment.

I was even going to drink too much during the game and give my baby a bottle at her next feeding, but then she never went to bed in the first place and I ran out of time to drink all my drinks.

 

I don't know much these days.  Mainly because I'm sleep deprived and living in a bubble with an emotional toddler and a new born.  But I do know the secret to surviving the first few months of parenthood: Having friends nice enough to start a Meal Train (mealtrain.com) for you and a membership to Amazon Prime.  That way you don't have to attempt to cook or leave the house to get essentials.  Especially the unmentionables that a lady sometimes needs after giving birth and doesn't want to ask  visitors to procure for her.

 

Although the whole not leaving the house or cooking thing can get a little dicey.  Today for lunch I fed my family mozzarella sticks from the freezer and a packet of tuna with crackers for lunch.  Shockingly Grant did not seem too impressed!

 

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Oh, and I miss sleep.  A lot.  But we are all still alive so I consider that a success.