Judge for yourself

Because I attended a baby shower on Saturday, I've been having discussions regarding whether or not newborns look like their 3D sonograms.  Judge for yourself:

...and then comes baby in the baby carriage

All last week, I planned our weekend with the knowledge that we'd have two kids.  Then, Friday hit, and I found out that we were suddenly kid-free for the weekend.  I'm sorry, but you cannot just throw someone into a situation like that.  Especially someone who is a stickler for mental preparedness. 

Why was I not jumping for joy?  Well, I'm not sure how impromptu, kid-free weekends go in your household, but we always manage to screw ours up.  

For a rundown of how our weekend went, you can just assume there was an argument (or three), and that someone had to go grocery shopping to calm down (someone who is monumentally impatient and hates grocery shopping - so really that should give you a way to gauge how frustrated that person was), and that one (or more) "I don't know, what do you want to do?" conversations happened. 

We've lost the ability to function properly as a duo.  Is there training for that?  How-to-be-alone-together-successfully-after-you-have-kids training?  Can someone send me a pamphlet?

Hypothetically speaking - version 2.0

When you're frustrated about fifty things you can't really talk about because some of it is not your business and some of it is no one else's business, sometimes your frustration comes pouring out over things you usually just sigh about and move on.

On that day, you blow little things out of proportion and throw tantrums at work and have to have meetings that make you uncomfortable and feel like you should apologize to half the office.

Of course, I'm speaking hypothetically here...again.

Victory is mine!

In October 2008, I broke my ankle and had surgery and the surgeon put screws and plates in my ankle and made me fumble around on crutches for a couple of months.  Then, after I was finally allowed to walk again, he told me to stick to swimming for now (it was December) for exercise (um, yeah, I was a different person then.  He didn't volunteer that info...I asked for it).  Then I found out I was pregnant with little Silas man and got all sleepy (because that's what happens the minute you find out you're pregnant - pee on the stick, plus sign, bam! you need a nap) and said "screw the gym if all I can do is swim.  I'll just sleep until I have the baby, and then I'll get hot again."  Part one of that plan worked beautifully..........

The point of that narrative is that prior to October 2008, I had fought a hard won battle to conquer the elliptical.  I say hard won because the very first time I got on an elliptical, it defeated me and threw me off and laughed in my face after about 2 minutes.  So, it took some humility and determination to build myself up to thirty minute work outs on the machine. I don't have any pictures of myself on the machine, but I imagine I looked something like this at the time (I totally didn't, but you've never seen me leaning on an elliptical in a sports bra, so I could have been pretty close and you'd never know the difference):

Picture of a girl in really good shape leaning on an elliptical in a sports bra to sell shoes - Reeboks if you're interested

Anyway, last night was my first encounter with an elliptical in more than two years.  I'm sure you want to know who won the battle.  Well, I did not get thrown to the floor in a puddle of sweat and defeat after 2 minutes.  No, I heaved and gasped valiantly for 6 minutes, which was one minute past what I predicted I could do before I started (holla!).  Then I begged for water and moved myself into the position I felt least likely to hyperventilate and die in and waited for R to deliver the water.  So, all things considered (all things being what terrible shape I'm in), I'm going to call it a victory.

Mommy's little brain ninja

 Sigh.

Maybe Silas is trying to wear me down.  He is a master strategist, and I've stopped trying to decipher his motives.

Last night, I was trying to run down the street two blocks with my friend Randi, and Silas threw the most dramatic fit in history and pleaded to go.  It kind of broke my heart.  So, I spent more time putting his carseat in Randi's car than we spent going to the store we were going to, which was obnoxious, but it also secretly made me feel good that Silas wouldn't let me out of his sight (because normally he could give a flip what I'm doing).  

Then he brain-ninja'd me this morning.  I was (falsely) under the impression that Silas was on one of his "I love my mommy" kicks (you know, because of the being upset if I walked in another room or tried to leave the house without him the night before business).  So, on the way out to the car this morning to buckle him in, I said something like "give mommy a kiss" and maneuvered my cheek next to his mouth.  He slapped me right in the face, y'all.

All you could hear as I buckled Silas into his carseat was the sound of me grinding my teeth and Michael saying, "way to go Silas, now we all have to suffer."

What is it about those three little words that scares men so much?

Last night, Silas had about four ounces of Sprite all to himself.  He then grabbed Michael's cherry-limeade off the coffee table and sprinted across the room drinking as he went (yes, I was freaking out about the running with the straw in his mouth, and no he didn't fall and put a hole in his trachea...it's not that kind of story).

The scene that then unfolded was akin to the beginning of every episode of Super Nanny... 

My slightly mischievous, but otherwise sweet, child morphed into a sugar-crazed blur of destruction and chaos and wreaked havoc on our house for a good forty minutes.  When he finally crashed, he whined and kicked and cried and snotted all over me until I wrangled him into bed...............and then I begged to be sedated.

This morning I felt like he owed me a debt of love and gratitude for putting up with him last night.  So, I kept trying to get him to say "love you" because he did it once last week, and I assumed that meant I was going to be able to get "luv you's" out of him whenever I pleased going forward.  He pretended he had no idea what I was talking about.

So, I made him watch the video of when he was about 3 or 4 months old, and it sounded like he said "love you" back to me after I said it to him (the original video is something like four minutes of me saying "I love you" over and over and over, but it has been edited down to the 22 seconds where Silas finally grunts something sounding like it could be "love you").

I just needed him to know that I know that he's capable of making the sounds and that I'll wait him out...because he can't feign ignorance forever.

I should stop forgetting my jacket

Some (extremely rude) people fixed the air conditioning on our floor yesterday.  So, it's about 23 degrees in my office today.  Because I spent a good portion of my morning trying to decide whether being really sleepy warranted me calling in, thereby putting myself in a big rush after I decided it did not, I forgot to bring my parka to the meat locker in which I work.  

Fortunately for me, there has been a jacket hanging on the back of my office door for about two years.  It hails from a time when I was a size small.  I'm wearing it.  I'm not a size small anymore.  Please see video below for a visual reference.