I don't want to give him a complex or anything

I know I rag on my kid all the time for being such a handful, and I worry that Silas might stumble across this blog one day and think, "now I need therapy."  So, here are some of the reasons he's awesome (yeah, J-Dub, just close the window out now, it's a Silas post):

• If I say "ouch!" or am crying, Silas says, "are okay, momma?" in his sweet, concerned toddler voice and puts a hand on my face to comfort me, and I melt inside and want to scoop him up and give him a thousand kisses - but I have to restrain myself or it ruins the moment because he's not big on PDA (public or private displays of affection) and he'll push me off of him and tell me to "go 'way" and I'll start crying all over again, but he won't care this time because I've annoyed him.

• He sings and dances incessantly.  In the car, at home, at the grocery store.  He doesn't care.  If music starts playing, he "fancy dances" (I'm not sure why I call it that, but I do, and I like it, so it stays).  If there isn't music, no problem, he'll just serenade you.  It's possible that others might find it annoying, but I will turn the radio off just to listen to it because I think it's hilarious when he sings a song and leaves out every other word and then claps for himself and says "yay!" when he's done.

• This may sound dumb, but Silas "gets" me.  He gets my sense of humor.  Other kids (and adults on occasion) don't always get that sometimes when I look and sound serious, I'm actually just messing with them.  There's nothing worse than trying to joke with a kid and ending up making them cry (or trying to be serious and causing fits of giggles).  Thankfully, Silas always knows whether it's time to laugh or run and hide.  

• He can imitate my why-are-you-talking-crazy-to-me? face (hereinafter "the face") perfectly.  When I am messing with him, I get "the face" - although I also get it when we're in an argument about whether or not it's time to go to bed or eat our dinner.  It's less cute then.

When he's not whining for an hour straight about dumb crap and making me worry that my face is going to freeze into "the face" permanently, he's really funny and smart and sweet.

Or maybe I just think he is because he's so much like me.

Oooooooooooooh, you're right, that's probably also why he whines about dumb crap so much.

Thanks for pointing that out

You know a while back when everyone was changing their Facebook profile picture to be their doppelganger?

I couldn't participate because I could not think of any celebrity or semi-celebrity or vaguely familiar person who looks like me.

Well, problem completely and totally solved because I had the following conversation the other day.

Friend: You know who you look like?

Me: Who?  Wait, this better be a compliment.

Friend: It is!

Me: Ok, who?

Friend: You remember that cartoon "Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers"?  

Me: Oh, yeah.  What's that have to do with anything?

Friend: You look like the girl.

Awesome.

Just wait...

Mostly what I came to say is that I cannot hear one more word about how much worse 3 is than 2 because, y'all, we haven't even made it to two yet.  

When I think about it getting worse than it is now, I break out into hives and fantasize about an extended vacation that only ends when I get a phone call saying, "he's human again, it's safe to come home."

The very worst part about it was that no one believed me.  Basically, they looked at me sideways with their mouths agape when I tried to convey what a little terror he had become.  I'm pretty sure that all the people who see him on the regular thought I was being a total drama queen because, "he's such a good kid."

Lies.

You know that mom you see carrying a kicking, screaming child out of a store because said child is just done shopping and you think thank the good Lord above we got in a nap today and that isn't my child embarrassing me and making me want to cry and go to the bookstore and buy out the parenting section because clearly I SUCK at it?  

That was this mom on Sunday when Silas threw a wall-eyed fit in Garden Ridge.

But you know what?  I didn't care because there were finally witnesses: my mom (Nana) and my aunt (Auntie-Maw).

After I had ensconced him in his carseat and gotten most of the snot and slobber and tears mopped up and they had paid for all their purchases and mine and made it back to the car, there was a lot of "he never acts like that!" talk.  

Um, yes he does.  Every day, thanks.

He's just super awesome at playing perfect-angel-pretend for anyone but his dear, sweet mother.  So, you know.  I'm not crazy like you thought.  He's just been pulling the wool over your eyes.

Wait, there's more.

Yesterday, the babysitter was trying to get some things done and Silas was right there in the mix, but they weren't doing whatever it was he wanted to do, and so he turned into "YOU WILL GIVE ME YOUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION RIGHT NOW OR I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING I CAN REACH" crazy baby and I received a text message that said something like, "now I see what you've been going through."

All I have to say is, "I told you so."

Because I'm a bitch like that.

And vindication is sweet.

He's totally going to outgrow this, right?  Right?!  RIGHT?!?!?!

Don't even answer me.  I already know.

"Just wait until he turns three."

You can't judge a book by its taste in music

If you scrolled through my iPod, your immediate reaction would be that I'm 16 and wear a lot of glitter and probably don't know many big words.

Well, you'd be wrong.  I'm almost 30, and I gave up glitter, like, two years ago, and I know more and more big words by the day.

I'm not sure what happened to me to give me such craptastic (I love it when blogger red-squiggly-underlines the made-up words I use) taste in music.  My dad listens to classic rock, and my husband listens to music that never talks about going to clubs or cars or sneakers, and my best friend can probably sing every word to every Beatles song.  

In my defense, I've tried.  I mean really tried to like music with substance.  It's just that, with a few exceptions, my ears mostly tune it out unless there's a bass beat and stupid lyrics in play - although they're totally on board for the occasional tear-jerking country song, which is good because my iPod LOVES Kenny Chesney.

That's all good and well - I'm happy in my la-la fairy land of terrible music and have walrus-thick skin when it comes to people making fun of me for it.  

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, now there is Silas, and we spend a lot of time in the car together on our new, improved longer commute.  

The first thing he says when I start the car is mu-SIC!  So, now 1.  I have to fast forward through all the words to a song in my head the instant it comes on to determine whether it's okay for parrot-baby to listen to, and  2.  he's starting to get pissy if a song comes on that does not have a bass beat and stupid lyrics and screams MU-SIC!!!  MU-SIC!!! until I change the station to a song fitting above description. 

Basically, I've ruined my son, and one day someone will scroll through his iPod and think he's a not-very-bright-glitter-wearing-16-year-old-girl.

Michael is going to be so pissed when he figures this out.

No good deed...

Remember Dave* and Cable Company*?  Remember how I conspired to go over Dave's head to the website and get my internet service cheaper?  Mmmm hmmm.  Well, Dave totally retaliated by tricking me into staying home from work on the wrong day.

Something about the sheet you print out when you sign up with a date and time doesn't really count.  What counts is the email they send you later with a completely different day and time.  

"Yeah, sucks for you that you stayed home on the wrong day.  Our next Saturday opening is in two weeks.  How does that sound?"  Super.  Waiting two more weeks to spend my Saturday sitting around all day until you decide to show up sounds freaking super awesome.  

Can you give me back that vacation day I spent for nothing?  They're precious, and I didn't want to take it to begin with, but someone is having Call of Duty withdrawals, and I was trying to be nice.  No?

How would I rate your customer service on a scale of 1-10?  (No, he really, literally asked me that) I give you a 2.  No, no.  You don't get to sound incredulous with me.  It's a 2.  I'm firm on that.  I don't care that it isn't your fault.  You haven't been much help and the fact that I've been irate for the last 30 minutes we've been on the phone together after waiting on hold for 30 minutes should be a clear sign that it is a bad time to ask me how I feel about your customer service.  So, frankly, I marked you down for stupidity.

*Names changed to protect a bunch of morons.

Ten things I learned over the three-day weekend

Things I learned over the long weekend:

1. The machines will soon be invading.  Here's my FB status from Friday: "just had 3 different machines eat my money trying to wash and vacuum my car. Text Michael that the machines are out to get me. Then a car with a transformer painted on the side rolled by...obviously I'm at chick-fil-a waiting out the impending invasion."

Here's the picture I didn't post just so I could recycle the story on my blog:

I'm a car emblazoned with a Transformer, and I made Michelle laugh hysterically at a traffic light

2. The children in my life are exceedingly adorable and imaginative.  Obviously, I didn't just learn this.  It was merely reinforced with the campaign they led to battle monsters under my bed.  It reminded me of being a kid and how completely awesome it was to make believe.  (Also, it allowed me to unpack three boxes without having to stop to put straws in juice boxes or pick Cheez-Its up off the carpet, or mediate disputes over whose turn it was to play with insert stupid plastic toy here or stand outside in the blazing sun watching children examine bugs and leaves and flowers).

3. I literally do not care what I look like in a swimsuit anymore.  It's covering the essentials?  It's good to go.  If you don't like my cellulite-y legs, feel free to avert your eyes and appreciate the fact that I have the common courtesy to cover my stretch marks.  I see this disaster area every day and have straight-up come to terms with the fact that there is no swimsuit on earth that can ever hope to cover up the damage done by the pregnancies and the cookies and the beer and the deep-fried ev-er-y-thing.  However, it's 9,842 degrees in the Metroplex, and I'm not avoiding the pool all summer because you may not care for how I look in a tankini. 

4. Speaking of swimming - tackling it with a toddler is a lot of hauling a bunch of crap to the pool, blowing up flotation devices, putting on sunscreen, and wedging chunky legs into swim diapers and swim trunks.  Then splashing about for five minutes prior to hearing "I'm all done" in a voice that means "get me out of here right this second, or toddlergeddon will be upon you."  Then, there's the removing of the swim diaper and swim trunks, the redressing of the slippery toddler, the deflating of the flotation devices and the hauling of the toddler and all our crap back to the car.

5. Hot juice boxes are gross and not at all refreshing.  I know that because I forgot the cooler, Silas' playpen, and a sippy cup all at the same time and was thirsty from the trauma and snatched a juice box out of the box I'd left laying in the back of the Jeep only to discover I'd just added to my list of mistakes for the day.  At least I remembered the sunscreen.

6. Sitting on your couch watching the NYC fireworks show is not as pathetic and sad as you might think.  I have no mosquito bites.  I didn't spend an hour and a half in traffic trying to get home.  And my kid wasn't up past his bedtime and was therefore not kicking the daylights out of me and screaming the house down when I tucked him in.

7. It will likely take a year for us to be fully moved this time.  I'm not patient enough to be working at this speed.  Although, every, single box we've moved has already been unpacked.  All eight of them.

8. If you call Cable Company* and talk to Dave*, he will lie straight to your ear and tell you that WiFi costs $50 a month and continue to insist that is the price even when you argue that it's lunacy and that you just had WiFi through the same company two months ago, and did they start powering the internet with Premium Unleaded in your absence?  So, you have to be smart enough to just hang up on Dave and go to the website because it will tell you that WiFi actually costs $30 a month - much like you tried to tell Dave.  (Are you trying to personally pocket my extra $20 a month, Dave?  I do not take kindly to thieves)

9.  If you go long enough without a refrigerator, you will miss things like shopping for groceries and preparing home cooked meals - even if you are in the running for laziest woman on earth.

10. I'm capable of being early to work when I do not know how long the drive actually takes - as I think it takes two hours to drive every route I've not previously driven.  It never does.

*names changed to protect a bunch of morons

P.S.  Happy (belated) Fourth of July.  It was a weird one at my house, but I wouldn't want to wake up to my weirdness in any other country on earth.  Thanks to all the brave men and woman who have fought to defend my right to use my time writing my silly stories and complaining about stupid stuff.  I live a charmed life because of the  sacrifices made by you and your families.  Please don't think I ever forget that or that I will ever cease to love and appreciate each one of you.

I just checked, and I'm still smarter than my kid. Whew.

I've taken to testing my kid to make sure that I am, in fact, still in charge and still smarter than him.

Me: Silas, let's go take a bath.

Silas: No!

Me: Stunned.  You like to take baths, Silas...

Silas: No!

Me: You don't like to take baths?

Silas: No!

Me: Oh, well, fair enough.  Do you still like to go outside?

Silas: No! thinks a beat. Mommy, outside!  Bicycle.  Outside.

That's what I thought, dude.  Keep being a little bratty, brat, brat, and I'll keep tricking you into telling me you no longer like to do the things I don't feel like doing in the 428 degree heat.

Check. and. Mate.