Baby Tea Leaves: Mother of the Year

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Saturday

It's the Small Things...(Plus a policeman named "Ariel.")

Hooray for free Wi-Fi at Starbucks!

It's the small things. It really is.

At the end of our drive, the only thing I wanted in life was a quiet corner with a plug and an iced latte. That is all.

And I remembered I had my "after 2pm coupon" with me ~~because I have already partaken in a Starbucks earlier. Shhhhhh. Don't tell.~~ So that meant my drink was only $2!

An outlet, a $2 iced latte and free Wi-Fi. Seriously. Does it get better?

My mom and I left my dad at the hotel with three toddlers in the same hotel room and when I left they were all bathed and jammied up and in their beds, but sooooo not happy about it. Hope things are looking up for him by now! *snicker*

It's nice and quiet here.

The drive to South Florida went really great with these little beings! It was only a 5 hour drive, and we would have left much earlier had it not been for Michaels and its irresistable magnetic force it has over us. I wonder each time I visit, why does Michaels have the power to suck me in and keep me there and not want to let me go? It has a sort of magnetism that just when I am getting ready to walk toward the cash register it finds a way to divert me all the way back to the back of the store and down each aisle again. I do this again and again and again, and when I am in the store with my mother and Michaels is doing this to her too (we have no defense!) then it's twice as bad. We start walking to the front and then she's diverted and I'm diverted. And it takes forever for us to meet up again and then as we walk toward the front the cycle starts again.

2 hours later...we're on the road.

Really, I wonder, it is like a craft caffeine or craft crack, it's brilliant. It's like what the Colonel puts in his Kentucky Fried Chicken to make it so addicting. Or used to, anyway, back when it was yummy and had all those terrible trans fats in it.

Well anyway, the drive was great. We watched a lot of movies, drew, sang, slept, and ate snacks. (Well, not me, I was driving.) It wasn't until we arrived at the hotel that the madness (and of course the sweating, my God the sweating!) ensued. The restaurant of course is always the most stressful (the squealing, the ceremonious knocking over of the water, all the banging and the of course, the not eating.)

And then I got to skip out of the room while my dad hunkered down in a darkened hotel room trying to convince three toddlers to go to sleep! OK, I feel sort of bad now. But he offered!

I am, however, much more better prepared than I was for our last roadtrip, which means I actually have items that are keeping them busy besides snacks (which was where I was a huge miserable failure of a mother last go round.) Each of them have the following:

A backpack from the $1 section of Target (actually each one was $2.50) but they are so cute. One is shaped like a puppy, another is an alligator and another is a butterfly.
A kid-sized travel pillow, the kind that wraps around their neck like for the airplane, they're so tiny it's priceless! Also Target dollar section.
Stickers and paper
A friend (Two Buzz Lightyears and one Strawberry Shortcake - all on clearance.)
3 magna-doodles.
A partridge in a pear tree.
I have a ton more tricks up my sleeve over the next week and a half -- Leapster, books, activity books, new movies, etc etc but I'm going to ration them all out as necessary for survival.

Also, the Disney Store had these cute little figurine sets on sale for $8, so I bought three sets, and each day I will give them each one of the figurines from the set and I have a tiny little cute bag for them to fill up with all the figurines by the end of the trip. Because once we're done with this one, we're headed to North Carolina and that's a 12 hour drive. Which will probably be much funner *sarcasm*. Anyway, I got two Toy Story sets and one Little Mermaid set. And some of you might be thinking that the Little Mermaid one is for my 2 year old but no, it's for my niece. And the rest of you are now wondering why I would buy the Little Mermaid set for my 2 year old son, so if you must know, it is because he calls himself "Ariel." Yes he does. No, I'm not worried. Not that I should be. Whatever with that. Tonight, when they were running around the hotel like rabid lunatics, I gave the boys some Police Man trinkets (a badge, fake binoculars, a police shield and fake walkie talkies -- also Target dollar section), the little one went by the name "Police Man Ariel."

You go figure that one out.

Anyway, that's a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother day. "Police Man Ariel" is as good a place to end as any!! Have a wonderful Saturday!

And ps. If you're wondering how to blog from your Blackberry, you go onto blogger on your computer, you got to 'settings', you find the "mobile & email" section, scroll down to the bottom and there is an "e-mail posting address", and you can send an e-mail to that address from your Blackberry and it will post to your blog. Nifty! The only thing is, I haven't figured out how to title it, it doesn't seem to have a link (thanks Pubsgal!) But I can live with that for now because I'm lazy.

I will spend Saturday and Sunday trying to post silly pictures.

Oh! And there is a ridiculous pool at the hotel I am SOOOO swimming in first thing in the morning. Because Coach Joe came through! I have a plan now! That means I am officially training for a half-iron distance triathlon and a full marathon. I am officially "in training"! Shoot. That means I actually have to do a half-iron and a marathon now, doesn't it?

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Thursday

I Am ThisClose to Wearing a House Coat.

.Just a few of the things I learned this week:

I no longer have any fashion sense whatsoever. I have 1,000,000 black tank tops and 2,000,000 tee-shirts. I'm not sure where it went, but I realized I have nothing "New York" appropriate, as I did when I once lived there, and I scoured 5 stores searching for something "hip" and I realized I no longer know what that means.
Those cute vesty sleeveless sweater thingies that are everywhere? They look horrendous on me. But they're so cute on the hanger!! And trust me, I've tried them. In every color and shape, because I refused to give up the dream. I tried on long ones, sleeveless ones, short ones, stripey ones, solid ones, the longer-in-the-front-shorter-in-the-back ones, shorter-in-the-front-longer-in-the-back ones, but nope. Nothing. Not now, not ever.
I used to wonder where people's fashion sense went and when the loss actually occurred because eventually a man will end up in bright pink plaid pants a woman will end up in a housecoat and now I see that I'm headed straight for it. I'm thisclose.
Unrelated: don't watch Cougartown while checking in for your flight. You may accidentally check "yes" when it asks you if you're carrying hazardous materials onboard and the website will log you out and shame you and you'll have to start over.
I am completely incapable of going to a pecan farm, buying two boxes of sugary pralined ones and not eating half of one of the containers in one sitting.
If you have a motherly instinct about anything, anything at all, don't ignore it. You're right.
I cannot take a picture of food. Well, physically I can. But it almost never turns out editble. I see lots of pretty food pictures on yummy foodie blogs and they have a gift for cooking and taking pictures of their delectibles. I have the gift of making food look like vomit.
After being at home for 4 years with the kids, I still have a pretty ok resume and people still want me. It makes a girl feel good to be wanted.
My 2 year old is in a "doesn't travel well" phase. The first leg of a roadtrip is fine, the second half is ~~pure hell~~ um, not fine. We have one roadtrip down, two left to go and mama might need a Xanax.
You can make a "time out" spot anywhere. And that includes on a curb outside a gas station in Georgia.
And it works, too.
Oh, and actually preparing for a roadtrip instead of expecting your (and by "your" I mean, my) 2 year old to entertain himself for 8 hours might help too. BIG lesson learned.

Well that's it, I am off to New York City for the weekend to see friends and family and go to my cousin's wedding. Squee! I will not lose my identification. I will not lose my identification. I will not lose my identification.

(Like I did the night before I left for San Diego for the half-marathon.)

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Death Rug

My heart goes all a-flutter when I see that little red "clearance" tag. I get so excited. If I am alone I might jump up and down. I squeal a little and get all giddy.

I mean seriously, don't you? How could you not?? It's the most amazing feeling ever! Leaving a store knowing you scored huge! It's so triumphant! I totally rock! No one got the deal I just got!! Plus, I can actually tell my husband about my most recent acquisition and feel all validated about acquiring it because it was on clearance! That makes everything ok! (Not that I keep things from him or anything...)

But then unfortunately there's the dark side of the clearance tag.

The clearance that actually means, "This is on clearance for a reason." You see, they leave those last few words off the tag. Because it's not always clear when you buy it if that's the case or not! It's not clear until you get home and you live with this delicious little clearance item for a few hours, even a few days, and then something happens with it to make you realize it was, indeed, on clearance for a reason and your dreams shatter! And I hate that moment of realization. It makes me sad. Because then you realized you were tricked. And you can't even return it! It was on clearance! That's the "clearance" understanding you have with the store! No returns! No refunds! Bastards.

So then of course you become jaded and skeptical about future clearance tags. And you also become well-versed in the "clearance risk taking." Like you learn that there is a clearance rack at a certain Bed and Bath store where everything's broken. You pretty much know what you're gonna get there. Good luck with that.

Then there are the items that go on sale because maybe the packaging changed! There is nothing actually wrong with the product! Which is the deal you really wanna score because that's the super-deal. But you never ever know. I wish I could at least ask. Or that maybe there were, in a perfect world, a sticker that told you why, like a sticker that said, "discontinued because it turns out this item sucks so go ahead, take your chances." Or something like that.

But still, so often I am blinded by that little red devil-tag. Most recently by the cute little kitchen carpet I bought for the floor in front of my sink, a place that always gets wet along with that part of my shirt that's the height of the counter. It was a beautiful, tiny little kitchen carpet with bright reds and pinks and cutenesses! Which unfortunately within mere hours of my putting it in its new spot, my husband caught the corner of it and went sliding across the kitchen, subsequently gathering his composure then angrily nicknaming it "Death Rug" and banishing it to the laundry room for fear that someone will eventually slide to their death. Purchased for $6. On clearance. Of course.

Why couldn't they just tell me it was "Death Rug" and been done with it!
Then of course, there was the cute little collection of tiny Transformers which I thought would be a perfect way to introduce my 4 year old to the world of Transformers that he has already been drooling over in his little-boy-that-loves-cars-AND-robots-and-holy-moly-there-are-things-that-are-CARS-AND-ROBOTS-IN-ONE??- type of way.

Biggest waste of 4 dollars ever. EVER!

You might imagine how my heart might break over the loss of a $6 rug, but imagine the broken heart of a 4-year-old who tragically cannot get a tiny Transformer to actually transform without legs or arms breaking off or when it does transform, refuses to actually stay in the transformed position. Basically, always looking broken no matter what you do. Not looking like a car, not looking like a robot, not looking like anything but a bunch of weird robotty arms and legs and a random robot head. Oh, how he would cry! He would pout. "It's not working!" he would yell and then ROAR before tossing it across the room. Totally not worth the $4. Not worth it at all.

In fact, if I think about all the clearance items I have bought which have actually sucked, I probably could have added them all up to get at least one decent non-clearanced -- yet totally working -- item. It's true that I have gotten some awesome deals on things bearing that shiny red little sticker, but I'd say it's only about a 50-50 shot.

Because two weeks ago, I also invested in a shiny lip-plumper lip-gloss on 90% off. 90%!!! It was like a dollar each or something! So I loaded up! I got every color! And I already have a lip-plumper lip-gloss from this exact brand, the only difference was the shape of the little tubey thingy. So how could I go wrong!

I was so excited about this lipgloss, I ripped the package open in the car! 90% off of lipgloss!!! I am the person who will buy a $25 lip-plumper lipgloss. Seriously, nothing makes me feel more glamorous than tingly lipgloss and I don't even care what I'm wearing. I could be wearing my holey pajamas but gosh darnit when I have that lipgloss on, I am MARILYN MONROE!

I put this little tube of love on my lips and gagged to death. It was a horrible cinnamon taste ~~and I CANNOT have cinnamon from gum or a lipgloss because of a knock-off Goldschlager incident in the 90's. Don't tell my parents.~~ Not only did it taste like cinnamon in an overpowering way, but it also had the audacity to bully me with its awful cinnamon-ey odor! For hours!

Horrid.

No wonder it was on clearance! The lady at the checkout counter was probably laughing her ass off as I giddily picked up my shopping bag and rushed out to the car to try it on. She knew the truth. I just know it.

Well, now I have 6 tubes of cinnamon lipgloss and a bunch of crappy Transformers and one cute rug that tried to kill my husband. I did bite the bullet to ressurrect the rug by putting one of those non-slip jobbers underneath it. But purchasing that for $6 has now made my rug cost $12, and if it kills someone now, it will so not be worth it.
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The Icing On the Cake

I put myself in time out this week.

If there were an episode of Mom's Behaving Badly, I'd have been on it.

Sometimes I'm not proud of my behavior. Sometimes I yell more than I'd like to. I'll admit it. I strive to have more patience when my house turns into a loony bin, but still. There are just those days. The pile-up. The "when it rains it pours" days.

And then when one of those days is happening, like for instance, I'm in the middle of a migraine, none of my electronics are working, a note is sent home about less than stellar behavior from my kids at school, there is but one thing that will send me over the edge every time.

Cat poop.

Because cat poop only happens on those days that all those other things are happening.

Never once do I come home from an awesome run, slow motion running and hugs from the kids telling me how awesome I am, putting flowers in water and turning around to spot the little nuggets in the corner.

Nope.

Not once is it on the day we come home from the park, tiny siblings hand in hand and laughing and frolicking nicely saying kind words to one another to find a surprise waiting for me on the couch.

Nope.

It only ever happens on the day when it is sure to send me flying off the cliff. A "Terrible Day Sundae" topped with cat poop in my bed.

I mean really, cat. Does my house just look like one giant litter box to you? Or do you see my eyebrows doing that thing that they do and decide you're going to find a great place to squat that's really going to piss me off.

Because the cat poo isn't coincidence. I'm sure of it.

It's strategic.

I can almost even picture him sitting in the corner rubbing his whiskers like they are his evil mustache, head back in that terrible cackling laugh.

Why! Why, I ask you!

Why does cat poop only happen at the worst time ever?

It's my question to the universe.

Anyway, my personal time out is almost over. But it's been nice to have been on a bit of a techno-hiatus, if even for a few hours. I'm refreshed. Which means there must not be any cat poo in the forecast. Of course the percentages could change by the end of the week.

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