Deal or No Deal

My son Boden is quite a character. He is now showing signs of potentially being a force to reckon with in his teenage years. He is perceptive, charismatic, and has a quick sense of humor.

Last night we got home from dinner and I was carrying him back to his bedroom to get his pj's on and he seemed very tired. This is our conversation:

ME: Boden are you tired? Do you want to go to bed?

BODEN: I'm tired. I want to go to Mommy's bed.

ME: WHAT?! Mommy's bed?

BODEN: That's the deal. (Pointing his finger for effect.)

ME: That's the deal? I don't deal with two-year-olds. I make the deals.

BODEN: I get to go to Mommy's bed and I get one show. That's the deal. One show in Mommy's bed.

ME: Who taught you how to deal?

There is good and bad to this. The good is that in his adult life he will be a good business man. The bad is he is going to be hell on wheels and I'm going to go prematurely gray.

My grandfather used to tell me that 95% of the world is bullshit and 5% is knowing how to spread it. If your spreader is broke, then your in trouble. Boden seems to be exercising his spreader just fine.

Another Poop Story

I decided that Boden's room needed to incorporate all his toys including the 5'x3' train table my father made him for Christmas that has been in my living room along with a bazillion other toys that junk up the living room. 

Making room in Boden's bedroom would involve moving his bed. While I was moving LIGHT WEIGHT furniture (for those who think this pregnant girl is doing heavy lifting, I most certainly am not) Boden is in the living room watching tv. I thought Boden was watching tv, but he wasn't in his recliner (yes, he has a mini recliner that most people are jealous of) and the back door was wide open. This wouldn't be a big deal if we had a fenced in yard made out of impervious metal and childproof locks, but we have 5 1/2 acres and lots of trees.  

I look at Shelby my yellow lab and scream, "GO FIND HIM YOU STUPID EFFING DOG!" I have no idea why I think she would all of a sudden turn into Lassie. She is just dumbly looking at me like, "stop screaming and throw something or take me to swim."

Seconds later, which felt like and hour later, I hear his little voice calling, "mommy." 

"Don't you ever go outside without mommy! Do you understand? I thought I lost you!"

"You lost me. I don't go outside without mommy."

I reach around him and I feel his heart, which is pounding a million miles a minute, and his back that feels oddly wet. I turn him around and... sigh, shit. Really, shit is everywhere: up his back and down his legs. 

I have mentioned in previous posts that my child has had problems with constipation since he was 5 months old. The kind where you become a midwife and help birth out the massive, solid log that is causing this baby pain, thus creating a fear anxiety of pooping. We should only be so happy that this bowel movement was... easier to get out.

I pick him up and head for... I have no idea where to go. At this point, the terror has turned into Do I take him inside and get poop inside my house? That would be a whole lot of disinfecting.

I strip him down, gag at the pungent smell, and head for the water hose. 

WHAT?! Don't judge! It was 85 degrees outside and he loved it. 

A two-year-old running around naked in the water hose is a happy boy. A mommy who doesn't have to clean shit in her house is a happy mommy.

Don't worry he had a warm bath afterward.

Kitchen Nuggets

Unfortunately, this is going to be a bit of a rant. To me, if the kitchen is dirty then the whole house is dirty. It is one of those things that make me feel better is having my kitchen clean.

Many people secure the "if I cook then you clean" deal. That is only fair if the other person is doing their end on the cleaning. My husband and I have a differing of opinions when it comes to standards of cleanliness and functionality of the dishwasher. However bitchy this sounds, I am truly grateful for the help cleaning. 

This is a list of things that a husband, boyfriend, or friend can do to help out in the kitchen.

1. Unless we invest in the Maytag dishwasher with built-in disposal, then you must first rinse the dishes before loading it. I know dishwasher are supposed to clean and the extra scraping and rinsing is a pain, but I really hate to run the dishes through again, because of food residue. 

2. There are starving kids all over the world, so wrap it up for left overs.

3. Maybe dishwashers should come with a how to load class. I don't care if the job of the dishwasher is supposed to clean the dishes. It does matter if you chuck everything in there and it can't spray the dish. Not only does it matter how you load to ensure getting all the dishes clean, but it is equally important to maximize your load.

4. The hand washed dishes after being cleaned have homes and it isn't on top of the stove.

5. Part of cleaning the kitchen is also wiping down the counters. When coffee, sugar, wine, breadcrumbs, and God knows what else is spilled on the counter do the courtesy of wiping that crap off.

6. While you are wiping the counters hit the kitchen table too.

7. Dirty sinks are disgusting. Clean that out too.

8. If the dishwasher is empty and you use a dirty dish the best thing to do is to go ahead and store that dirty spoon in the dishwasher and not at the bottom of the sink. Make sure that you aren't putting in dirty with clean dishes too.

9. If there are things that must go into the garbage can, then be mindful of actually making sure the trash gets into the bag and doesn't nasty up the parts that aren't sent to the dump like clumps of leftovers sticking to the lid of the trash can. This only means going and cleaning the can, so it doesn't get funkier.

10. Whatever wife cooks it is good to eat period. Do not hesitate to try to secure a babysitter and take her out every once and a while on a one-on-one date. It could open the door to sex later on. 

12 Weeks and growing

I turned 12 weeks pregnant this Tuesday. My baby in my belly (so reminds me off Fat Bastard from Austin Powers) is now 2 inches big and my OBGYN should now be able to feel my fundus. Sounds like something good doesn't it? FUN-dus. Nope, it is just the top of my uterus. 

Gee whiz it is so much fun being pregnant: the sour stomach, the slow digestion effects, getting up to pee in the middle of the night, the deterioration of normal brain activity, and now the constriction of clothes that were once comfortable.

I am embarrassed to say that I had to change my normal jeans and opt for the expandable maternity jeans that are made out of super stretch denim and have the WWE stretchy band at the top. Oh, so sexy I feel. Not to mention the fact that as I was writing this I realized that my shirt was on inside out. Thanks for depleting my brain activity so much that I did not notice that I put my shirt on inside out, baby. I go out of the house with my shirt inside out and thankfully was wearing a jacket. The jeans are a bit large, but I do not feel like there is an anaconda around my waste.

So many more weeks to look forward to...

Winter Snow warning creates gym frenzy

WTF! Can I tell you just how much I love those three letters, because they are so useful and keep me from dropping the literal f-bomb. 

It has been raining non-stop since Friday and yesterday the warning was out for a bunch of snow. What happens in the lovely South, since we do not have plows and those big salt igloos (I noticed them on my trip to Michigan this year), people will first run to the grocery and by milk, bread, and chili ingredients. Then after the fridge and pantry is stocked the schools out of fear of harming children will shut down the schools without actually seeing a snow flurry in their area. 

It snows in this area once every couple of years and it hardly is anything to fart about. So, they shut down Columbia County Schools, which means that Boden's daycare is shut down, which means that I cannot go to work, and I'm home and it is a beautiful sunny, snowless, cold day. Ladies and gentlemen we got not a single flurry last night as the news predicted and the schools were closed for no apparent reason. Way to go! Ppprrrt!

I do not want to stay inside and rot any longer. We have been inside since Friday, because of non-stop I think I want to start collecting a male and female of every animal type rain. Boden and I go to the gym. This not unusual occurrence for us. 

Let me just preface that I go to the gym, because it makes me feel good mentally and physically and it allows me to eat larger portions of food. I encourage everyone to be healthy. 

However, WTF are all these people doing at the gym at this hour of the day? It is cold and school is cancelled, so you come to the gym at a different time. Sigh.... Not even the cool kids after school room with that dancing game is open then and your kids do not want to hang out with the babies and toddlers. You should have seen all those kids in the nursery. I felt sorry for the ladies watching all those ankle biters. The whole gym was a zoo. I even considered starting back at 6am with the business crowd. (Yes, I used to go to the gym that early.)

It really ticked me off. Kind of like the mad rush in January of new gym members. I just want to scream out to them that "75% of ya'll are going to quit," but since I'm not one of the six o'clocker's anymore and don't have to wait on the showers and hairdryers in order to get my ass to work isn't priority, I chilled out a bit.

I almost turned around when I found out that the drink machine was broken and waiting on a part. Sigh, I deliberately raided my husband's change jar just so I could buy my Dasani. 

Poopy Night Out

This story comes at the expense of my husband, but it is not intended to make fun of him at all. The situation is funny. Poop humor is too good to pass up and now that I'm getting my energy back my creativity is also returning a bit. 

Brian, Boden, and I decide to go eat tacos at a local Mexican restaurant. There is a wait. Fortunately, this older gentleman offered me his seat next to his lovely wife. I wouldn't ordinarily take the seat, but I was tired, hungry, and pregnant.

I am enjoying a nice conversation with the gentleman and his wife and Brian takes Boden outside to keep him occupied and to prevent him from annoying the other patrons. (He really isn't that annoying. He was annoying me mostly.) Brian storms back into the waiting area and asks for Boden's bag. I think nothing of it. He obviously is fully confident about handling whatever situation is occurring and I hand him the bag.

Finally, the "your table is ready thingee" vibrates and lights up and Brian is nowhere to be seen, so I follow the hostess to our table and try to call Brian on his cell phone. No answer. Okay, I'll wait.

Brian comes in with Boden and flings the bag on the table and storms off. My pregnancy is making me pee, so maybe he really had to go. I thought he was being a bit rude not to help Boden into the high chair, but I let it go. I could feel something was amiss.

I order some drinks and Brian returns from the bathroom. I don't want to recount all of it, but here are some excerpts which lasted for the first half of dinner and then went away after the first half of his margarita:

"There was shit everywhere."

"There were only four wipes."

"It was like clay. I tried to wipe it and it would only smear."

"The truck now smells like shit."

"It got on my hands and I don't even know how."

In Brian's defense, he has changed many poopy diapers. However, you know you have skills when you wake up in the middle of the night, don't put on your Coke-Bottle glasses (I am probably legally blind without contacts or glasses), don't turn on any lights, and change a diaper in no time. Yes, I can brag about diaper changing skills... it doesn't go on the resume though, but it should.

I feel for him, but have been thrown up on even in my mouth, pooped on, peed on, and God knows what. All I could say is that it only gives him that much more experience. Now he has learned that you rip the sides of the pull-up, they have changing tables in the bathroom (the bathroom would also be illuminated by lights), and he can always ask me for help.

I want to go to there

If you have been reading or personally know me, then you know that my husband has gone to the southern hemisphere on a work trip to South Africa. Since I'm pregnant, I'm not bothered that I'm missing out on potentially contracting malaria or being away from Boden for 10 days. I'm extremely jealous of summer. We haven't been on a vacation in two years and I'm getting beach fever. In particular, I'm yearning for the most relaxing vacation I've ever enjoyed in the Abaco Islands. 

You can do a little work on the island or rather in a boat doing some fishing. This is a picture that I found of some random people who went fishing with the same guide, Robert Lowe, but the fish look like the ones our guys caught. We're talking a plethora of big ass fish is what they brought back. 

This is me and my friend Stacy on our rented boat enjoying the beautiful day. 

Tahiti Beach I really want to go to there. This is just the sweetest beach I've ever been to in my whole entire life. It was like swimming in bath water with clear aqua waters and white beaches. There aren't big waves. It is just a place to loll about and do jack shit. You can park your boat and just jump into the water. It is shallow for a while and if you are brave you can swim out and snorkel. I'm good on the beach.

This is a photo of Captain Jacks. We played trivia there hoping to win our tab. No luck, but the Kalik beer and food was awesome. There were many other yummy places to eat that you could get to by boat, golf cart, or foot. I could not get enough of the grouper sandwiches and conch fritters. What is really cool about the area is that the party goes from place to place each night, so there is always something. You can even go to Sunday brunch at Nippers. This place had some of the best BBQ that I've ever stuck in my mouth and the best people watching: thongs, banana hammocks, and some stuff you would see on Spring Break. 

I'm going to zone out now and pretend that I'm at our rental house, The Calypso.