Baby Fat Phat

Today I will be shopping for some new clothes for my new job because the last time I worked was almost 2 years ago.

"Have styles really changed that much? my husband asks.

No, but my waist size has.

Holy Beta Mommy Batman!

If anyone doubts my Beta mom status, here is an example:

My daughter's is on medication. Nothing major. She takes a vitamin with fluoride - something about our water not having fluoride in it; I don't ask questions, but I am pretty sure the water company and the pharmaceutical companies are in cahoots. She is to take this medicine once a day. She is also taking an iron supplement because at the tender age of 14-1/2 months, her iron levels are already low. She has to take this four times a day.

Do you know how many times I have sat in bed at night wondering Did I remember to give her her iron? Yeah, I am sure I did...well it is too late now. I am sure she'll be fine.

This morning I was in the shower thinking Did I give her her vitamin and iron? I know they were on the kitchen table and I remember putting them away...

As I scream down to my husband to give them to her (can she OD from too much fluoride?), I hear him: Ava, Ava, where are you?

Guess I am not the only Beta parent in the house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank goodness for spell check, I apparently did not know how to spell fluoride.

Working Girl

Yes, it has happened. No, I did not get the dream job (the interview was 3 weeks ago and I sent thank you letters and left a voicemail, I think I can safely say they did not like me as much as they should have I thought they did).

I accepted a job offer and I am really excited about it. I will be working 3 days a week and my daughter will only be in daycare (or as we are calling it "school") 2 days a week. My husband is making the ultimate sacrifice and working from home 1 day a week. Otherwise it would not pay for me to work if she had to be in "school" 3 days. Seriously, if I told people how much daycare costs in NY, they would be in shock. I could send her to Harvard for less money.

The beauty of only working 3 days a week is that I will still have time to spend with my daughter...and still have time to blog. ::smile::

Everyone Should Have One of These

At 4:55pm today my doorbell rang. It was my 12 year old neighbor. She wanted to know if she could take my daughter for a walk.

Um, excuse me? You want to give me a break so I can get some writing done? Can I adopt you?

Unfortunately her mother will not give her up, but I did get a half an hour to myself. And I did start writing my entry for this:

http://www.thenovelette.com/contest/

Nap Update

Little princess has been napping. And I guess I need to hold up to my end of the bargain with the Big Guy and stop taking his name in vain and stop making Catholic priest jokes.

We've been doing one nap a day and everything has been working out well.

Fingers crossed.

I Was An Alpha Mom. But Then I Had A Baby.

Sara at Suburban Oblivion recently wrote this post about moms declaring themselves an Alpha Mom or Beta Mom.

I was an Alpha mom for a very long time. I had to be. My step-sons were raised by their father where running out of milk was normal. Not having clean white socks and using napkins as toilet paper happened weekly. And family photos were thrown into a Rubbermaid bin. It was not because my husband was a bad father; he was just a bad mother.

So when I joined the clan, I felt that these boys deserved to know how the other half lives. Toilet paper for everyone! Dinner at 6:30 every night - woo hoo! I took pictures, had them printed AND put them in individual photo albums! And gosh darnit, I cleaned, folded AND put their clothes away!!

Then I had a baby.

I shop at BJ's (because I cannot afford to run out of diapers) so there is still an abundance of toilet paper. Dinner is anywhere from 6-7 every night, but I am not always the one who cooks it or eats it hot. And they are lucky if their laundry gets folded and is back to them in less than a week. Last week step-son #1 had to scavenger the house for clean socks. Oh well.

I have learned that it does not have to be perfect for us to be a happy content family.

So what they have been eating peanut butter and jelly for lunch every day this summer?
So what pizza is dinner most nights?
So what Friday nights have turned into Fend For Yourself Fridays because my husband and I have taken the night off from cooking?

No one is dwindling away to nothing and they always seem to find a pair of socks somewhere.

So I have learned to be a beta mom. And so far everyone is healthy and (somewhat) normal.

Oh, and I ALWAYS make sure to pay the electric and cable bill. So even if there is no food or clean clothes, there will always be an internet connection. Priorities people.

I Heart Contests

Check out Cool Mom Picks and enter to win $200 worth of back to school goodies.

A Nap! A Nap! My Kingdom For A Nap!

Do they make Ambien for babies? Do they make "please God, don't let me kill my daughter" pills for mommies?

My little insomniac stopped taking her afternoon nap a few days ago. Genius that I am, it took me a few days to realize Hey, she's 14-months old, it was bound to happen eventually. So after taking some time to mourn the loss of the second nap a day, I took the plunge. We were going to do the one nap thing and I was going to run around like a lunatic for those two hours trying to get everything done.

But princess had other plans. She decided that if we're going to skip the second nap, why not skip the first as well? She is too old for naps. Naps are so last month. She's got people to see and places to be, she doesn't have time for a nap. Naps are for 13-month olds, people who work overnight shifts and lazy teenagers.

But I NEED the nap. My daughter was a horrible sleeper for the first seven months of her life. I feel that I did my time.

I need time to go to the bathroom without tiny hands banging on the door. I need time to shower. I need time to eat lunch without someone throwing her Gerber graduates at me. I need to check my email without her banging on my keyboard. I need to read a book that does not rhyme or have pages made of cardboard. And sometimes I just need to sit at my desk and stare out the window and think about life, writing, kids and Zach Braff.

If she doesn't nap tomorrow, I am taking one and she can do the boy's laundry.

The Third Bourne

The other day my husband and I dropped off our daughter at the baby sitter's and headed to the movie theater for a matinee of "The Bourne Ultimatum". I will not be writing a review because I do not have time and no one is paying me, but I did like it a lot.

More importantly, this was the first time in a year and a half that we went to a movie theater. Ever since the little munchkin was born, we've been netflixin' it. But my husband is a huge Jason Bourne fan and I am a huge Matt Damon fan (yum!), so we shelled out the $5 for a matinee...plus $7 for snacks and $15 for a baby-sitter. All for 1 hour and 50 minutes of action packed fun.

The most exciting part, well the end. But also the popcorn and cookie dough bites.

You know your life is sad when a $5 matinee and junk food makes your day.

If I Only Had a Hammer

Last night I was woken up at 2:48am by a 20 year old who one would think weighs 300lbs the way he stomps up and down the stairs. He also is so strong that any door he closes, slams very loudly. He's like the incredible hulk.

Incredible idiot is more like it.

I remember at 20 thinking that I knew everything and that I did not need anyone, but I never remember being so inconsiderate. Especially when I was coming home at 3 in the morning; I would sneak up those stairs shoeless, and so quietly that it would take me 5 minutes because our steps creaked. I would also use the bathroom before I came home, because we all know how loud pee hitting toilet water sounds in the middle of the night. This is partially because I did not want to wake anyone, but it was also because I was somewhat intelligent and did not want to hear the screams of my lovely mother that would shake the house.

My step-son...not so intelligent. The other night I was woken up at 5am because he and his friends decided that the one night I turn off the air conditioning was the one night they were going to stand in my driveway and wax philosophical about Bud Light tasting great or being less filling.

Last night he woke the baby up. Now it's fightin' time!

As I lay in bed at 3:30am with a now wide awake daughter pulling my hair while calling me "da dee", I contemplated the revenge I would bestow.

1. Disconnect his internet...again.

2. Take away his computer and donate it.

3. Take his car keys and leave his windows open as it rained throughout the night.

4. Smash his cell phone with a hammer.

5. Put Visine in his dinner tonight (I just watched Wedding Crashers again).

6. Put my daughter back in her crib and as she screams for 2 hours, put the monitor in his room and let him listen to it.

7. Move his bedroom into the laundry room.

I still have not decided. Any suggestions?

My Day

My sister was telling me that yesterday she let her boyfriend have "his day" and they did things that he wanted.

I thought this was a great idea and decided to share with my husband:

Me: Yesterday sister and boyfriend had "boyfriend day" and they did a bunch of things that he likes to do, but she doesn't. They went miniature golfing and saw the movie Superbad.

Husband: That's nice

Me: We should do something like that. We should have Coma Girl day and Husband day.

Husband: But husband day would be without Coma Girl.

Nice.

5 Minutes for Mom Has Made Me Famous

You can go and check out my interview here.

This is a really cool website for moms, even if you do not have a blog. Go check them out.

And no, I don't really look like this little cartoon woman...my waist is much smaller.

Where Have I Been?

I am not sure how many of you actually missed me, but I have not posted in a while.

No, I did not leave my husband and step-sons and get a cute little apartment with my alimony. No, I did not get a job; although I did work in one office for a day and they offered me the job, but I do not think I am going to take it for a variety of reasons. No, I did not suddenly realize that I have no writing abilities and gave up on my blog and my dream of one day writing that novel I have been talking about. No, I was not on some dream vacation on a little island with Juan giving me a massage while my husband fed me grapes.

Honestly, I have been in a bad mood for a few days and had no desire to cook dinner, let alone write anything.

Right now I am barely talking to two of my step-sons, my husband is leaving for Dallas tomorrow morning for two days, I have to call a very nice man tomorrow and tell him that I do not want to work for his company (and I feel badly about it), I have one more scheduled job interview (this one is for a part-time position at a book store--WHAT? Yes, even though I am a college graduate, I am considering this for nights and weekends eliminating the daycare worries) and I have to start touring daycare centers just in case dream job calls me next week and offers me the job.

Dream job is a full-time position at a state university 15 minutes from my home that has a daycare on campus. The woman is on vacation this week and will be making her decision next week. Please call! The money is not fantastic and I have to pay to park, but daycare on campus is a plus and I think working for the state school system is a great opportunity.

Anyway, I have just been kind of cranky and not in a blogging kind of mood. Which would explain the 53 unread blogs in my Google reader.

But today I popped a St. John's wort, step-son #2 is off to his mother's for two days (which is shocking and there are bets going on whether or not she keeps him the whole two days), daughter is happily sleeping and my mother-in-law bought us a cake for our 2nd wedding anniversary which I will be consuming while watching Big Love tonight.

So as of right now I am in a good mood and thought I would share.

If you don't hear from me for a few days, you'll know it all went sour.

Restless Baby Syndrome

Argh, is there a pill for this?

For the past two nights, my precious offspring has woken up in the middle of the night. And because I have not been sleeping well, by the time she wakes, I am so tired that I stumble into her room and with one eye actually open, I grab her and bring her to our bed where I collapse and she pulls my hair.

Now there are many problems with this, but the only one that concerns me is her constant moving around. I am not talking about a little tossing and turning. I am talking about sitting straight up and then falling in any direction gravity takes her. That means sometimes she falls on my head, sometimes she falls on my husband's chest and most of the time she winds up kicking one of us. So either you get a head-butt at 4am or you're getting kicked in the stomach.
It is wonderful.

This morning was particularly enjoyable because she awoke at 5:15am and after smacking us in the head, picking my nose and sticking her pacifier in my husband's mouth, she decided she was not going to go back to sleep. Now, I am not getting up before the sun. And we all know that Noggin does not begin until 6am. So there I am at 5:30 in the morning trying to put a Baby Einstein DVD in while half asleep in a dark room.

As soon as the DVD begun (Baby Bach), she started dancing - well, her version of dancing, which is basically her sitting and bouncing her shoulders up and down. Now this is quite adorable, except at 5:33am she is shaking the entire bed, which is surprising since she is only 23 pounds.

I honestly do not know where she gets this energy from. It is 9:47pm and I've been ready for bed since 7. But I do not have the luxury of a 13 month old; I have things to do, such as ordering pizza, thinking about doing the boy's laundry, organizing my iTunes library, watching The Office and writing a blog post.

Some of us have adult responsibilities.

What A Good Day!

I found something that I have been looking for for the last two days. It was in a piece of our luggage that we hadn't used since our cruise in March. So obviously it was not that important. But it did take about an hour and a half of my life that I will never get back, so I was very happy to find it.

And

I killed the fly that has been living in our kitchen for a few days. He had slowed down considerably. I like to think it is because I keep a very clean kitchen; he probably was high off the cleaning product fumes.