Stella stella bella bo bella

Cranky

It’s been wicked cold these past few days and both Lolo and I are fighting some sort of bug. (I know that my fine friends north of the border and west of the Rockies are simultaneously rolling their eyes as I comment on how cold it is at 19 degrees. No, it’s not the coldest place ever, but an Old Navy polar fleece isn’t gonna get you through the day either.)

We’ve been cooped up inside either for cold weather or relentless rain. And, Lolo has been banned from playdates until the river of snot recedes a bit from her nostrils. Needless to say, I’m a bit stir-crazy.

I try not to complain on my blog as I reserve that for conversations with my loved ones. <wink> But, I took yesterday afternoon as a sign that it was time and also perfectly normal to vent about my funk when I was walking “the girls” around the neighborhood in a slight drizzle. Suddenly the misty rain turned into an outright downpour halfway through the walk.

While I had the plastic canopy over the stroller and my trusty rain boots on, Zoe and I still got soaked. My cordouroy jeans were as wet as the pavement and I felt like I was the opening scene of a “Chic Lit” book turned into a feature film. It would have been about some perfectly nice, new mother who left the corporate world to be a stay-at-home-mom and was “having a time of it” in the burbs. The movie would, of course, have been set just outside London and my character’s name would have been something like Jemma. Throw in a single friend in the city who smokes, some struggles with weight, a few martinis, and an adoring husband who tries to help in my plight and you have yourself a feature film. As long as Kate Hudson doesn’t play my character, it should be a hit.

Open Call: Baby Jesus

I got a call from a woman at the church Lolo was baptized in regarding their Christmas pageant this year. They need to fill the spot for Baby Jesus, and she wondered if Lolo would be interested in the role. Once I stopped chuckling, I quickly turned on my “stage mom” instincts and asked when the performance would be. She told me it was at 4pm on Christmas Eve. Dargh! We will be out of town, but I assured her that Lolo was indeed a superstar and would have been perfect for the part. She’s realistically baby enough but with a hint of sass.

She said she was going down the list of babies born in 2008 and Lolo was at the top. I like to think she was at the top because of her star power and presence and not because she was born in the second month of this year.

Does Target sell dinner?

You think you have a system. You’re totally down with managing all things baby, dog, household, self-showering, etc. And, then you’re child goes from wanting to simply sit in the shopping cart watching the bright colors go by to wanting to get out of said cart and shop herself. There goes my task list.

It also doesn’t help my time management dilemma that the previously mentioned baby with her own agenda now eats a truckload of food three times a day and takes close to an hour to eat that truckload in her high chair. And, did I mention she still naps twice a day, thank the good Lord. (For the record and for ears of the napping Gods, I am not complaining about her snoozing, I am simply mentioning it to demonstrate how my time “to accomplish” is limited.)

I used to be able to cruise out of the house as soon as she woke up from a nap and tackle at least two tasks and a playgroup as long as I had two bottles packed in the bag. But, now I find it hard to walk the dog and get to the grocery store in one day.

I have to think ahead and see what will pack the most punch into my day. That’s why it’s a godsend that Target sells curtains, books and milk. But, do they sell dinner in a bag, time in a box? If they do, I’ll buy them. Forget Home Depot or the library, they can only boast one line of goods. Who needs that?

I quietly painted another room bringing my sum total to three rooms down, plenty to go.

Separated at birth?

The original Capt. Morgan

One knee up. This is her new favorite pose. She's ready to walk with one leg up whenever her other one decides to follow.

It’s a disease.

More likely, it’s an unhealthy obsession. And, I know unhealthy obsessions like the back of my hand. In fact, I no longer consider them unhealthy. That’s how much I have grown.

There are two words that can stir venom in any mom across the land: Sippy Cup!

There isn’t a perfect one out there. Yet we search and spend to find the best flippin, hoppin, no-leakin, bpa-hatin, magical, valveless, handled, straw-poppin cup there is.

I feel like I have tried and purchased them all until I read reviews online of other sippy cups and see that I at least show a little bit more restraint than other moms. My cupboard is like a museum of pastel plastic. The ones she liked, leaked. The ones she refused, were leak-proof and perfect in my eyes. It matters not, they are all relegated to the empty space behind the margarita glasses.

And, then we went to the doctor, and she asked if Lolo was drinking anything from a cup. I decided not to show my Achilles heel and chose to simply say that she had no interest in a sippy cup. Then she asked, “Have you ever just tried to let her lap a little bit of water out of a regular cup?”

Wha? Regular cup, as in the kind you can get at IKEA for 17¢? The kind with no science or magical tricks? The kind with no reviews to read on diapers.com or thesoftlanding.com? What do you mean, just a regular drinking vessel? Preposterous!

She loved it. There was no work in it. It was easy. She saw the water in the cup, and I tipped it and it came to her. “So … great doctor. What am I supposed to do when I am out and about across this great state being a busy, on-the-go, no-nonsense mom? Just hand this 9 month-old an open cup of milk?”

She said, “Nah. Just get a cup with a straw.”

She mastered how to drink from a straw in 3 minutes. Again, she may not be talking, but her talent … it’s imbibing. She’s good.

Portrait of my obsession.

Chunker

Chunker update:

Well, Lolo had her 9 month checkup and two things came out of it.

1. She is a milk-a-holic.

2. She is in the 75 – 80 percentile in weight and height.

The doctor asked that I add in more snacktimes with solids to help her need less milk but said her growth is right on track and she’s happy with how proportional she is.

She may not be saying “Dada” or “BaBa” yet, but she can drink you under the table and put you to shame.

He’s Italian.

Meet the man that will be removing my ganglion cyst. Hurray for Dr. Marco.

I’ve had enough of limping along with this bothersome cyst, so I sought out a new foot doctor that would first of all, have a clean office, and second of all, be able to cut this thing out. He’s booked for surgery until January (which is a good sign) and says that it should only take about 10 minutes to remove the cyst. The scar will be fairly large considering how small the cyst is because he has to ensure that he removes every last bit of the mass (yummy) due to the high recurrence rate for ganglion cysts.

And, my instincts were right. He said it was more than plausible that my cyst grew from my repeated trips and twists to my ankle in my Dansko clogs. He said that repeated trauma like that to the same foot can lead to this kind of thing. (As a sidenote, the doctor did seem a little confused as to how I could continually fall in quasi-therapeutic shoes. He knows not my penchant for tripping and falling!)

I’m just focusing on the cool scar I’ll be able to brag about once flip flop season returns. I’m not focusing on the incision. Not at all.

Eureka!

Saturday was a momentous day in our wee household. We hired a person (a very kind woman with loads of experience) to come over and watch Lolo whilst we left the house without a diaper, a bottle or even one stale Oatio in our hands–gasp! It’s an amazing concept, babysitting. Expensive, but amazing.

We chose an afternoon as the first trial so Lolo could hang out with Max (short for Maxine) while she was awake since we plan on using Max as an occasional Saturday night babysitter. I just didn’t want Lolo to wake up while we were out one night in the future and have what seemed to be a stranger pick her up and comfort her. I thought I at least owed her the chance to have mixer with the sitter. And, mix they did. When we got home, it was nite-nite time and she practically begged to go to sleep as she was so worn out.

As for our activities outside the abode. I didn’t really plan an itenerary (another gasp!) because in my mind, the itenerary could have been rushing back to the house when my daughter had a meltdown after realizing that I was GONE! But, she didn’t meltdown (far from it) and we kind of had a loose afternoon ambling around a cute town very near to us. We found a Christmas gift for Lolo and spent some quality time at a pub watching college football, eating appetizers and drinking pints of foamy beverages. I obsessed about the amount of fat that was probably in my soup and opted to eat more of the free pretzels than the dish I paid for. I should have known that butternut squash soup at an Irish pub would be a tablespoon of squash mixed in a large bowl of warm cream. Ah, relaxation.

My initial idea for the afternoon was to go to IKEA to find some additional cheap stuff for the house. But, Matt vetoed that with a quickness noting that that’s not something you do when you are free of baby care. I’ll admit, IKEA on Saturday isn’t exactly relaxing but at least you can get that natural high of crossing things off the to-do lists that rain in my head.

So, we are prepped and ready for Max to come back in a few weeks for a real night out at a restaurant that does not include a kids menu. We’re stoked and the food better be good!

Busy

Halloween parades, baptisms, grandparents abound and babygate installations.

This was quite a weekend.

Stinky and spooky

Harvest fun

Another Cara visit.

We were lucky enough to have another visit from Cara and Kieran while Big B studied for “the test.”

Since Saturday looked like a washout, we planned on taking the tikes to a local indoor play space, otherwise known to babies as “crack.”

The lovely employees at the place made an error in the schedule (even though we confirmed twice that week via phone that there was indeed a 2 hour open play slot), so by the time we go there, only 30 minutes of “open play” remained. But, they used their time wisely, and I got over my bitterness with the snafu. Kinda. Not really.

Let me tell you this. She is on fire when she is let loose in these padded wonderlands of germs, plastic balls and foam mats.

Guess what?

Chicken butt.

Thanks to a visit from a big boy named Kieran, Lolo figured out what stairs are really for. (The baby gates are ordered.)

She went all the way up the stairs by herself with only my hand behind her to ensure she wouldn’t bust her head falling backwards.

She’s unstoppable

We tried out another playgroup today over lunch and someone we know had a little bit of a good time. It’s amazing what a few hours with someone else’s toys can do for the spirit.

What do you do when you can’t call in sick?

It finally hit. I got sick last weekend (whilst Matt was away in West Virginia) and then Lolo got sick, too. Wanh, wanh, wanh …

It’s a ridiculous proposition to take care of a baby alone while you are sick. It’s not like I can use the boob tube to entertain her with Nick Jr. either. She wants active play, active play Mama. Oy.

So, I had to turn to drugs.

Once again, those silly commercials marketed to moms finally make sense. You know the one I’m talking about … The mom gets sick and the whole house falls apart. The dog is eating the laundry, the baby is climbing on the TV and the dad doesn’t have any dinner to eat. But, as soon as “mom” takes the magical, advertised medicine, she’s back on her feet so her family can get back to normal.

So, I visited my local CVS for some meds so that I could get back to normal. Who knew that I would have to sign my life away to get anything with real active ingredients? I shopped for the medicine card displaying the product that I wished to purchase since they can’t keep the powerful stuff out in the open lest someone steal it for recreational purposes. I checked out with my cards and they brought me the cold medicine that is kept under lock and key behind the counter. But before I could swipe my debit card and make my sniffly exit, I had to show my driver’s license, the cashier had to scan in my license barcode and I had to sign a waiver submitted by the state! Holy legalities. I couldn’t read the waiver because my eyes were watering profusely from the hay fever I get with colds.

Now the state will know every time I get a cold and that I only buy tissues with lotion because my nostrils are too sensitive for regular Kleenex. So invasive.

Gnawed

Since when do squirrels slaughter pumpkins?

The neighborhood squirrels completely demolished my poor pumpkin. And, I'm not alone in my sorrows. The whole block is filled with pumpkins showing their open wounds.

Crafty

Incredibly uneven and amateur, but kitchen curtains nonetheless.

It was harder than I thought to make these simple curtains with a lining and keep everything straight and even. This was a test to see how foolish my idea to make curtains for the entire house would be.

Part of me says just go for it and part of me says, “Just go to IKEA and load up the cart.”

As I ironed the curtain fabric next to the sewing machine I unearthed from the rubble of unpacked goods, I realized the situation I found myself in. Sewing, ironing, baking apples for Lolo, and prepping the sunroom for the paint I was about to apply … Who am I? Crafty McHomemaker that’s who.

Snubbed

This is a good one.

I met a cool mom in the town next to ours outside of the local Starbucks as I was feeding Lolo her dinner in the shade. She came up and introduced herself and said she felt compelled to say hi since we were both feeding our kids outside. I thought, “How nice is this woman?”

I had actually just decided the day before that I was no longer going to throw my phone number and e-mail out to any and every woman that passed by with a kid. My desperation to meet someone was getting stale, and I needed to rein it in a little.

But, low and behold, just when I pulled back, someone else reached out.

So, she told me that she and a bunch of other “Next Town Over” moms got together every Friday for a playgroup with wine. She said it was a crazy mix of both shy and eccentric moms who were stay-at-home and working parents.

I met my new friend at her apartment and we walked over together. I was a little nervous as it sounded like a big group. But, I thought, “Hey, at least I have met one new mom. If the rest are purely entertainment, then so be it.”

We made it to the playgroup and had a great time. Lolo had a blast with the kids as there were 10 of them running around wild and hopped up on starchy puffs. I started planning in my mental datebook that from now on every Friday afternoon would be booked with my new found playgroup. I shopped in my head for what kinds of snacks I would prepare for my guests when the group rotated to my house. I thought I was in.

The next Friday was a bust because one of the women was having everyone over for her daughter’s first birthday party in lieu of the playgroup. The Friday after that I was in VA. So, when I got back, I called my new friend to hang out and she started telling me that the other moms were quizzing her on her “new friend.” They seemed a little miffed that she had strayed outside the circle. From the tone she was mimicking, it didn’t sound like they were blown over by me and Lolo either. And, the email announcing the next Friday playgroup specifically said “NEXT TOWN OVER MOMS” playgroup.

So, I said, “Looks like we’re not being invited into the playgroup …” She replied, “I don’t think so.”

Oh well. So weird. I feel like I blew an audition, but I didn’t even know that it was an audition.

It’s not like these chics had on Tod’s driving loafers next to my flip flops. Just when you think you’re out of the third grade, the clubhouse door gets slammed in your face.

Scratch that

24 hours after posting that she still wasn’t interested in crawling across a room, Lolo decided that it was time to explore all the dangerous things that make up a house. I spent a lot of my time in VA chasing or corralling the bean. It’s exhausting to say the least. We even had a visit to a doctor in the neighborhood after she fell and hit her eye pretty badly. This was of course as we were trying to scoot out the door for the long drive home. But, she checked out okay and didn’t develop what we thought would be the inevitable black eye.

In any case, we’re back and ready to share some pictures.

Mama and Lolo visited the Aquarium and checked out all the local fish.

And, we had a lovely time hanging out with our pal, Grace. Notice how Lolo has no problems invading Grace’s personal space and refuses to pick up on Grace’s cues that she’s had enough face time.