Impulse Control

The Bean sat herself down in front of the toy and began pounding the crap out of it. Buzzers were going off, lights were flashing, plastic pieces were popping up and down - she was having a great time with it. Until the little girl next to her stole the toy right out from under The Bean's nose.

No worries. There was a full box of toys. 

We reached in and pulled out an equally annoying xylophone and handed The Bean a stick which she used to pound out a sorrowful ballad of love lost. Until the little girl made a beeline for the xylophone and ripped it out of The Bean's hands.

Michael and I took a collective deep breath. 

The Bean found a calculator to play with. The xylophone was forgotten. The Bean meticulously pushed buttons and finished our tax returns. Until the little girl swiped the calculator from The Bean.

My eye started twitching. 

Michael grabbed the first toy, now strewn aside and neglected by the thief child, and placed it back in front of The Bean. Friends reunited. The pounding of switches and snippets of the alphabet song filled the room. Until the little girl pulled the toy from The Bean's grasp. She must have heard Michael's agitated foot tapping. The next thing I knew, she was shoving the calculator back into The Bean's hands, nearly knocking her down in the process.

Since the thought was there, despite the violent execution, we said a falsely cheerful 'thank you' to indicate sharing is nice. 

But child law being what it is, as soon as The Bean started tapping on the calculator keys, the little girl needed the calculator. Now. And having 3 years and about 30 pounds on The Bean, it was quickly hers again. And The Bean was toy-less.

Michael was rolling up his sleeves and cracking his knuckles. I quickly reminded him that good hippie parents do not interfere in such social interactions. Rather, they let the child figure out how to handle the situation on their own so they do not turn into miserable, entitled adult gits looking for handouts. 

We focused our attention back on The Bean who had found a plastic box with a marble inside it. A treasure that the little girl promptly pried from The Bean's increasingly tighter grip.

I sighed. Michael stood up to drop kick the little girl to the next room when The Bean having had quite enough of this rude behavior let out a little shriek of annoyance. There was only so much she would tolerate. So The Bean crab crawled her little butt over to the little girl and stole the box right back.

We couldn't be prouder.

Apparently I Fell Off the Earth, But Then I Came Back Because I Missed Pizza

Yeah, yeah. It's all or nothing with me; what can I say? I'm probably in the top 54 bad people on the planet because I can't keep a blogging schedule to save my life.

But I can explain.

You all...you're not going to believe it, but I'm having a great time in the land of Mama. People say it takes 4 or 5 months until you start to reap the benefits of parenthood and really begin to enjoy yourself. I guess the "give or take 5 months" was implied.

The Bean has turned into a human over the last month or so and we actually have fun together. That or my standards for what I find interesting in another human has dropped significantly - which is entirely possible since I work in a home office and am surrounded by 3 annoying dogs and a pissy cat all day.

But it's a nice change to hang out with someone who thinks life is pretty super and we should probably just laugh at all the things.

She Has the Grace of Her Mother

The Bean presents: Her impression of a peeing dog, but someone dropped a piece of steak off the table and they need to get to it before the other dogs do...but man does he have to pee...



I apologize for my grating voice over, but be thankful I managed to drop my Long Island accent in college.

So now we have a mobile baby and you can tell me how different life is going to be from now on, because having a baby didn't change anything.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

As is wont to happen, The Bean tossed and turned so much the other night, she found herself in this position:

Sitting straight up. Asleep.

You know when you wake up in the middle of night and are convinced it's time to get up and go to work? The Bean woke up a few moments after she had hoisted herself into a sitting position and clearly thought, "oh, I'm awake and sitting up in my crib. Guess I better get my day started."

I Turned Into My Husband, The World Collapsed and Then We Died

The other morning I was putting The Bean down for her morning nap. As you may remember me mentioning 1 or 8,000 times, we are on The Schedule now. Messing with The Schedule results in immediate dismemberment and/or death by me pulling your kidneys out through your eyeballs.

Your choice.

The moment I laid The Bean down, He Who Is The Most Annoying Dog in The World (right after our other dog, Turd-Eater Extraordinaire) began his morning ritual of bark at all the things. This normally just pisses me off and we all move on with life, but today the barks sounded oddly distant.

"Goddammit. Michael forgot to latch the front gate behind him this morning when he left for work because he is the worst human being in the world and is purposely trying to ruin my life. Now that stupid dog is probably down the street eating little children and pooping on the lawn of the creepy old guy."

Turns out none of that happened. Bear was just in the far corner of the backyard giving hell to the neighbor who has lived here longer than us. Typical morning.

Once back inside with The Protector of Great Annoyance at my side, I hear The Bean on the monitor; clearly still not napping. I tap on the video and am greeted with the face of my child against the camera. Let me be more specific, she was STANDING with her face against the camera as she was preparing to fling herself out of the crib. Perhaps she was on her way to play with Carl the wooden caterpillar or maybe she was looking for Elmo to hold a jam session to "Elmo's Song" and "Elmo's Ducks."

Either way, I ran into the room to prevent certain disaster.

I flung the door open and she knew she was caught in the act. The Bean giggled and gave me a goofy side grin as if to say, "It's OK mama, I'm cute and it's all going to work out."

That cemented it.

The child was scooped out of the crib. It was time to lower the mattress.

Right at this point, my face must have caught fire and someone shoved an ice pick in my ear. It is the only logical explanation as to why it was so mother-loving difficult to perform this task.

For starters an Allen wrench was needed. Not any Allen wrench...this Allen wrench. You know, from the crib someone else assembled for me 10 months ago. Thankfully I obsessively hoard Allen wrenches from the 10,007 pieces of IKEA furniture I've assembled during my lifetime and one fits. I undo all the screws I think are applicable to the task at hand. I guessed wrong. I undo all the remaining screws on the crib. The crib defiantly stands tall - unmoved that I've taken away ALL the pieces holding it together.

There is no discernible way to figure out what to do next.

Thank goodness for the interwebs (which I only remembered about after I had screamed all the curse words ever at the top of my lungs - it's my husband's go-to technique for assembling furniture and I was out of ideas). The interwebs told me to rip the crib apart with my bare hands. No really.

So I did and it came apart.

30 minutes later, the mattress was dropped, the crib was reassembled and I had calmed The Bean down from her tenth meltdown because I wouldn't let her eat Allen wrenches the whole time.

All this before I settled in for work at 9 AM...it was a long day.

The World, She is A-Ending

I would like to send a shout out to the mother-loving god of snails and baked beans.

The child slept through the night. And by "the child," I mean my child. And by "through the night," I mean, entirely...from 6:30 PM to 6:00 AM with nary a peep, whimper or blood-curdling scream.

The Bean's most recent *phase* has been waking up at 3:30 AM to demand a little nip of a bottle. Because who doesn't want a warm little tasty treat in the middle of the night? Except it means someone has to wake up and prepare said bottle and bring it to Her Highness and someone has to change Her Majesty's diaper since she's filled her overnight diaper to the brim from all the nips of milk.

And if you think that someone is my husband, well, I laugh in your general direction.

I'd like to interrupt this blog post to formally withdraw my love of Dr. Weissbluth, the traitor. I trusted you sir. Considering The Bean is now sleeping in her own room which is noticeably not in my bed, I have to admit your techniques work. BUT...when this new phase of waking up at 3 AM started and I consulted you for help, you took pages 263 and 264 of your book, made an origami knife and stabbed me in the back.


And I quote, "...babies may still awaken once or twice in the middle of the night. I consider this behavior normal, natural, and not changeworthy - if it's for a brief feeding and not prolonged playtime."


Not. Helpful.


Back to your regularly scheduled post...

So when I woke up and rolled over to check the clock and saw 5:30 AM glaring its fluorescent green hate lasers into my eyeballs, I flew from the bed to The Bean's room since she obviously was dead.

Just as I was about to turn the knob to her room, I checked the monitor and she rolled over.

And by "rolled over," I mean she wasn't dead.

We may all survive this after all.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Shoes

Working out of a home office means I go to work in my socks and shower once every other month. So imagine my dismay when my boss unexpectedly asked me to go to a client meeting with him and I would need to wear A SUIT.

Since I'm a Fatty Patty right now, I had to go out and buy one. Which depressed me because it's nice living in the land of ignorant fat bliss. The solution? Spanky new shoes for the soul. 

The 4 inch heel should have been a deterrent, but their sexy siren call was irresistible. Wearing these shoes would surely make everyone look past the 20 extra pounds I'm carrying around and see me as an insatiable sex kitten.

Seeing as the vixen heels were in the running for world's most uncomfortable shoe, I wisely brought along travel shoes for the airport, taxi, lobby, elevator - every situation where I was not standing directly in front of my client.

Being me, I chose the world's second most uncomfortable shoe as my travel shoe. 

Hear me out...these shoes look like they should be comfortable and I fall for their lies every time; forgetting they are about 10 sizes too small.

Did you know it is next to impossible to buy women's shoes in an airport? Men's shoes? Every other store including the newsstand. Women's shoes...nowhere to be found.

By the end of the trip I found a pair of travel socks.

Less sex kitten and more furry muppet.