From The Bottom Of My Heart

Thank you free Baby Einstein YouTube video for hypnotizing my child just long enough that I could quickly and efficiently cut back all ten of his talons consecutively without any bodily harm to myself, my son or the people in and around the surrounding neighborhoods.

The Countdown Begins

With Thanksgiving inching closer and closer I am reminded that my days with my beloved fall decor are numbered. Don't get me wrong, I love love LOVE my Christmas stuff (My sister-in-law calls my Christmas decor a "catalog Christmas", I choose to take it as a compliment.) but I equally enjoy my autumn things. I took stock of what I have and realized a startling revelation. Aside from my wreath, all my fall stuff are pumpkins or various heights, colors, and textures. Apparently I really like pumpkins. Would you like to meet them? I thought you would.



These adorable little guys are my only "Halloween" decorations. Everything else can just be filed under Autumn.



These two cute pumpkins are some of my kids favorite things to play with. Nevermind that they have boxes upon totes upon storage containers of toys. Because, really, who needs toys when you can play with metal pumpkin thingies?! Yay!



This here is my pumpkin shelf. That middle tan one is the newbie, I just bought her the day after halloween. :) Please ignore the chipped paint on the shelf. It was originally white but I've been spray painting it brown about once every year for the past seven years or so.



Hi buddy. This cute little bugger is my leftover candy dish. After my family devours all the good stuff after halloween this is where all the gross leftover pieces that no one ever really wants go.



See? Like this.

But then after awhile we'll all get so hard up for candy that we'll end up eating the stuff we don't even like. It's a vicious cycle we endure year after year filled with guilt and disgust. And sugar.

I can be a tad dramatic.

So what's going on in your house? Have you already swapped out the seasonal decorations or are you trying to hold on to the last lingering moments like me? I'd love to know! :)

Right Now:

My kids are up way past their bedtime and playing with a big inflatable football player thing in the living room. I am in the bedroom hiding in a corner so I can have some "me time".

My husband is making me a grilled cheese sandwich because they are delicious.

I smell like a giant gyro because I worked at my dad's restaurant today and have yet to take a shower. Shower's are for the weak.

Not to confuse anyone, I do bathe regularly and do not think "shower's are for the weak". Just sometimes. Like right now.

Jeff just brought my sandwich to me and my youngest followed him, found me in my corner, and is now begging like a dog for my sandwich. He's actually whimpering like a puppy.

I'm way too tired to do anything productive but the night owl in me wont go to sleep. Or it could be the Redbull I pounded around 7.

My sandwich was yummy. I may ask for another.

I Love Fall

I really do. I'm always a little sad to see summer end but fall in Washington is usually gorgeous. Right now it's about 70 degrees with clear blue skies. That's better than most of our days last summer! I especially love the changing colors of all the trees and plants around here. So beautiful. And they match my home decor so well! Love it!

Yesterday was the first day in a long while when all the stars aligned for a perfect picture day. Johnnie didn't have school, I didn't have work, neither child needed a haircut, and the weather was beautiful. Of course in our household nothing is ever easy and we didn't actually end up leaving until around 3 pm to find our perfect picture takin' spot.

After getting lost downtown for awhile (I have AWFUL direction skills) and finding three separate spots that I didn't think were good enough I finally found a beautiful little landing spot with TONS of leaves.

So I woke the kids up and threw them in the leaves. What? That's not nice?

Apparently they didn't appreciate it and both totally acted out. And I learned a valuable lesson. That I need a 'helper' for days like that.

I was hoping for a few more pics from the 'shoot' but I am in LOVE with the ones I got. Plus, I think my kids are the cutest children that have ever walked the face of the planet so I am just a little bit biased.

Funny story, after about five minutes of sitting in leaves both my kids were like "eff this" and started running away from me (hence all the pics of them from behind) and after awhile I couldn't even tell them which direction to go in. Joey is just learning how to run and tries to whenever he's got the chance even though he's not very skilled at it yet and totally busted his face in the dirt. Poor kid was screaming so hard and wouldn't stop until I had him back in the car in his seat with his sippy cup of milk. The funny part is that while all this chaos was going on I had a pack of 'Greeners' (that's a word for hippy out here) watching, giving me weird looks, and walking in our general direction. A normal person would kind of give a sympathetic/weird/awkward/poor mom look my way and keep their distance but not these people. As I'm sitting in dirt trying to console my screaming snotty child these people walk right to where we were, which wasn't by anything or anyone, to look at a leaf on a tree next to us. A freakin' leaf! Ugh.

This...

...made me happy today. :)

Just Not In The Mood.

No, this isn't going to be a post about that.

I just haven't been in the mood to keep up with this here blog. I don't know why I do things like this. I get all kinds of excited for a brand new project of some sort, a billion ideas run through my brain, but once the novelty wears off and it becomes something I have to do versus something I want to do I rebel and give up. I know I'm only hurting myself and I'm boring for you guys to read. I really am sorry.

I'm also tired. I started working three days a week (three very loooonnngg days) prepping at my dad's new restaurant to help get it up and running in addition to taking care of the kids and being the house-cleaner, the bill-payer, the money-budgeter (New word! You're welcome Webster's.), the chauffeur, and the disciplinarian, I'm pretty much too wiped out to write about anything let alone something interesting and funny that people would enjoy reading.

I also have a lot of self doubt.

"The Question"

"Mommy, where was I when you were a little girl?"

Johnnie, my four year old, asked me this question today while driving home from preschool. My husband, Jeff, had the day off from work and stayed home with Joey so Johnnie and I could have a rare moment with just the two of us. Lately he has been very concerned with what I watched, played with, and even ate as a little girl and so this question didn't come completely out of left field. I understand that at his age it would be hard to comprehend time and age and advances in technology. I mean, c'mon, some of the toys that are available now are just ridiculous! Makes the kid in me a little jealous.

We've been having these little discussions a lot lately. Johnnie will ask me if I liked watching ICarly when I was a little girl and I will inform him that ICarly wasn't a show on TV when I was a little girl and the majority of the cast weren't even alive yet. This usually just adds more confusion but at least I'm being honest and direct, right? Hey, I could just say "yes" and be done with the convo but that's not my style.

Johnnie is a child with a lot of questions and I do my damnedest to answer each one simply and logically enough for him to understand. Of course there are holes in this method because some things are just way too complex for a four year old to wrap his brain around. Johnnie can tell you that a balloon will fly in the sky because there is helium in that balloon, and that helium is a type of gas, but if you ask him what a gas is the answer is "I don't know". Because Mommy and Daddy don't know how to explain it. That's what science teachers are for.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand. I really didn't know how to answer his questions today because I haven't given it much thought yet. I thought that this topic would be something that would come in a few more years when I'd have the time to research it and give him an honest, but not graphic, answer.

Instead the conversation went more like this:

"Mommy, where was I when you were a little girl?"

"You weren't around because you weren't made yet, honey."

"Made? You mean people put me together like a robot?!?!?"

"No, no, not like a robot. Mommy and Daddy made you."

"How did you and Daddy make me?"

-awkward pause-

"Mommy and Daddy loved each other so much that we wished we could have a baby to share our love with."

"Ohhhh, you wished for me and then I was in your belly?"

"Yes, baby, exactly. That's how it happened."

Now, I know that this is probably the most simplified and romanticized version of how a baby is made but it seemed to pacify him for now and hopefully I bought myself a couple more years before I have to give a more detailed answer.

God help us all when I do.

Blah

My oldest, Johnnie, has caught some kind of bug and was up puking all night. Poor kid. Do you know who was up along side him cleaning up said puke? This girl. Poor Mommy. We're not sure what happened or where it came from but he was fine all day yesterday, got sick around 1am, finally fell back asleep around 3ish and is acting fine now. We still kept him home from school anyway just to be on the safe side.

So, after an exhausting night I think some laughs are in order and here are some videos that always make me giggle. :)




This cat makes me laugh every time.



I want to run out and buy a hamster. And a piano. And some popcorn.



And lastly, just another day with my husband and son.

Why Today Sucked, A List

-I overslept and then was rushed getting the boys and myself ready to take Johnnie to school. This resulted in not realizing what temperature it was outside and thus we were all overdressed. This brings me to my next reason...

-It was freakin' 80 degrees outside! Which sounds like it'd be awesome for the end of September in Washington but it was muggy as hell. I was not a fan.

-My lovely husband decided to put his slacks for work in the dryer instead of ironing them this morning to get the wrinkles out and didn't check his pockets. There is now blue ink all over a whole load of laundry that I had already had in there. Any suggestions on how to get the ink out will be greatly appreciated.

-My fat jeans fall off of me and my skinny jeans make my muffin top more...muffiny.

-My one year old was the crankiest little turd all day and refused to take a nap.

-And then, my one year old puked in the bread aisle of Safeway. I guess that explains the crankiness.

-I procrastinated again and didn't make some important phone calls that I've been putting off doing. This brought an odd mixture of guilt and relief. Until tomorrow.

-My house is super hot.

Word Of Advice...*~*UPDATE*~*

Never, and I repeat, never, pop a zit...while slightly inebriated.

You're welcome.

*~*UPDATE*~*
I overheard this statement on the TV today:

Dude talking about some hot famous chick: "She looks like a Greek Goddess, well I guess not Greek because she's not hairy."

My feelings got hurt.

You Probably Shouldn't Even Bother Yourself With Reading This...

I drank way too much coffee today so right now I'm feeling like I need to clean all my bathrooms from top to bottom, hit up a Joann Fabric's hard, and finally clean out the 'too small' clothes in my kid's closets. With a slight case of paranoid anxiety underlying it all. Fun times. Most likely I'll just alternate between hanging out on the computer and crocheting flowers. I'm really into crocheting flowers right now.

Wanna know how I was able to get myself into such a state? Because I FINALLY bought a full-sized coffee maker from Walmart yesterday for only, brace yourself, $6.88. Seriously. Obviously it's the lowest of the low when you're talking about coffee maker quality, but who cares? I've got crack in a cup. Yay!

On a completely unrelated topic (that is really probably something best for a Twitter 'tweet' or something or other but I'm getting old and Twitter scares me) Johnnie was talking to my husband about numbers earlier today and Jeff asked him what his favorite number was. Johnnie didn't even skip a beat and told him that his favorite number is one. And the reason? Because it's easy. Hmmm.

And then he sang a song about it.

I apologize for this abomination masquerading around as a legitimate post. Because it's not.

P.S. Did anyone watch Glee last night???? I did and do you know who's freakin' excited it's back?? This girl. And Puck is still hot. Just sayin'.

Maria, The Awesome, Fights A Jellyfish *UPDATE WITH PICTURES!*

View from our room. Jealous much? Yeah, I thought so.

When Jeff and I arrived in Puerto Rico last month we were beyond ecstatic. According to weather reports online it was supposed to be raining the whole time we were there but it wasn't at all. Actually, it only rained the day we left while we were on our way to the airport. It was just gorgeous. And hot.

The minute we walked out of the airport it was like we were punched in the face by the humidity. Being from western Washington we were definitely not used to this weather but we really didn't care. It was sunny!





We got in around 1:30 in the afternoon and went straight to the hotel. Even though we weren't supposed to be able to check into our room until 4:00pm they let us check-in anyway and even upgraded our room so we'd have a view of the ocean. BONUS!!! We were totally thinking that this trip was just getting better and better. We went up to our room, checked it out, looked out the window and saw how absolutely GORGEOUS the beach was and decided that we were gonna go play in the water.



We laid out on the beach for awhile and hung out but after awhile I got bored and wanted to go hop over waves and whatnot so we did that. The water was so warm and the sand was really soft under our feet. The only problem was that I kept getting salt water in my eyes and it would hurt so bad and I would just stand there holding my eye closed afraid to open it because I was wearing my contacts. I'm sure I was a sight.




Right before the attack. So happy. So hopeful.

So there Jeff and I are, only two hours into our trip and having a great time. We're jumping around, giggling, and trying not to get knocked down by the waves when I felt a very, very slight tingling feeling on my foot. I really didn't notice it until it was an afterthought which I brought up to Jeff. We didn't really think it was a jellyfish or anything, probably something that just felt weird, and in typical Maria and Jeff fashion we took the joke too far and were just saying stupid things and pretending to get stung when all of a sudden it felt like someone had tasered the back of my leg. I've never actually been shot with a taser, but that is exactly what I think one would feel like. My voice got all high-pitched and squealy and I started hopping towards the beach. When we got out and looked at my leg there was about a half dollar sized red spot on my leg. Within a couple minutes it had doubled in size and became a giant welt. My whole leg felt like it was on fire and when we showed the sting to the doorman he kind of chuckled and was like, "Yup, that's a jellyfish sting." Thanks buddy, we figured that out.



I wont tell you what happened when we got into the room but I will say that the theory of urinating on a jellyfish sting happens to be a giant freakin' lie and doesn't work. Theoretically speaking, of course. It's not like I begged my husband to pee on my leg while I stood in the shower awkwardly or anything. Ahem. I will say that it's a good thing that I was the one out of the two of us that got stung because if it was my husband we probably would've ended up going home that evening and I would have had to listen to him whine about how he got stung for the rest of my natural born life.

The End.



P.S. Did you know that jellyfish stings typically tend to go away after about a day but then a week later will totally come back itching like a mother-effer? Yeah, I didn't either. But they do. Oh god, do they ever. And they can keep coming back for up to nine months! Yay me!

P.P.S. Things like this tend to only happen to me. This is why I am scared of everything and basically live like a hermit.

P.P.P.S. Once my computer quits being so douchey I will post pictures for y'all! Can't wait!

********************************************************************************
Here are some of those pics I promised awhile back! I just want to add to the story above that the welt went down after the first night and the rest of the trip was awesome. Every once in awhile I'd accidently scratch it and want to keep itching but I can practice self control every now and again.

Oh! Hello There!

Hey, how have you been? Long time no see! Come around these parts often? Me neither, apparently.

If you couldn't tell I have been absent for awhile and while I had all these awesome pictures and stories to share with you guys it probably isn't going to happen for another week or three or eighteen because my computer has given me the middle finger. Allegedly, someone has bogged it down with computer games and pictures. Allegedly.

My computer is a freebie from a family friend who builds computers for funsies (...I guess...) and doesn't have some fancy data/picture/music burning do-hickey program on it but "someone" has loaded so much stuff onto the poor beast that at any moment it's about to blow and everything I love will be destroyed. All right, it's not quite that dramatic, but it feels like it cause I really could lose all my pictures. And I like my pictures. And since it is so full of pictures and other important things like The Sims that I can't even install any CD/DVD burning software. Woe is me. (A normal person would just say, "Uninstall The Sims and then reinstall it later", but I can't because I can't find the box the game came in and it's got a code on it that is needed when installing it. Wow, I'm a nerd.)

Anywho, my solution is to head off to Best Buy and get one of those flash drive thingamajigs and figure out how to work that thing and temporarily make some room so I can get the CD/DVD burning software installed. Then we can really get this show on the road.

Now to make you guys like me again I'm gonna leave you with this:

Whussup

Pumpkins All Around In My Little Red Wagon...

That's what Barney is singing right now on Sprout and I just know that this is what will be in my head for the next few days. The Sprout channel is a wonderful learning tool for children and I know that my son has learned a lot from it but I also know that I am not alone when I say that I CAN'T STAND it. Oh man, it's like these shows have subliminal messages in them or something! Even my 13 month old gets sucked into these shows and he doesn't know what they're talking about! It's like baby crack!

I have a confession to make. I had Joey a day after Johnnie's third birthday during the summer and Joey was a difficult baby who was hungry ALL.THE.TIME. No joke. I was seriously breastfeeding this kid (sorry) every hour and a half for at least 45 minutes so this didn't leave much time for poor three year old Johnnie. I felt bad and we had a lot of family members that would take him out for the day and things like that but there were some days where I would be at home with him all day and would have to find things to entertain him in between feedings. We would do the usual preschooler projects but sometimes he would just want to hang out and watch TV so I would set him up in the living room or my bedroom and put on his favorite channel (Sprout).

But then, something would go terribly, terribly wrong for this poor three year old and he would accidentally change the channel to CNN or The Weather Channel or maybe even just static and this sad little boy would come running to wherever I was nine out of ten times feeding his new but extremely inconvenient little brother.

So, I did what any quick thinking but stuck-on-the-couch-feeding-a-newborn mother would do. I taught my three year old how to use the remote. It was the only thing I could do at the time and....he's....learning....his....numbers,....right? (Just humor me.)

I'm not proud of this fact (okay, maybe a little) but my son knows how to get to Spout, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and ESPN. I'm pretty sure my husband did some teaching of his own on that last one.

But to every good thing there is a downside, and the downside to our situation is OH MY GOD, WE TAUGHT OUR CHILD HOW TO USE THE REMOTE!!! WHAT WERE WE THINKING??? And this kid knows how to use it. We'll all be sitting around, enjoying a very educational hour of Jersey Shore or The Bad Girl's Club when all of a sudden we'll see a '1', '1', and an '8' pop up at the top of the screen. All of the adults in the room will scan the room for Johnnie and he'll be off in a corner sitting with the remote trying to act like a perfect little angel while not making eye contact with anyone. How do we not notice that instead of seeing a bunch of drunken people get into fights we're seeing Caillou talk to his cat Gilbert about what he did at playschool? (Shoot me now for knowing that.)

TANGENT ALERT: I really hate Caillou. Like, to my core. Maybe it's his incessantly high pitched voice and the only way I know that he's not a girl is because they say it in the theme song? Maybe it's the fact that he's supposed to be four years old and is bald while his whole family, including his younger sister, all have hair? Maybe it's the simple fact that I am 26 years old and know waaaaayyy too much about a show aimed at a preschooler market?

Now I'm just depressed.

It's Hot and I'm Whiny

According to Weather.com it is currently 92 degrees outside and my thermostat says it is 85 degrees in my house. This is not normal for Washington state, especially since we pretty much haven't had a summer at all this year, and Washington houses do not come equipped with air conditioners. I don't know how to react to the heat like this and my first instinct is to wear the least amount of clothing I can get away with, eat Otter Pops and lay on the floor. While whimpering and whining about how hot it is.

Aren't Otter Pops incredible? They are probably my most favorite food, if you can even call them a food. We don't get them often because I lack any kind of self-control and will literally grab them by the sheetful and eat about 20 to 30 in one sitting without even realizing it. And I don't use any fancy scissors to open my Otter Pops. No, I've learned and honed the divine skill of ripping them open with my teeth. I am very lady-like if you can't tell. Usually after the carnage is done we will find the little plastic tops all over our house for weeks if not months.

Have you ever felt the pain of the sudden realization that you are out of Otter Pops? It is almost unbearable. Picture this, you're going about your day to day activities when all of a sudden a little thought pops into your head, "I think an Otter Pop would be delicious and refreshing right about now". You walk into your kitchen and on over to your fridge all hopeful and optimistic, you open your freezer door, then WHAMO! You're hit with the sudden realization that you're staring into an Otter Pop-less void. It's utterly depressing.

I really wish I had an Otter Pop right now.

P.S. I'm sorry this post is random and not very interesting. My brain can't function like this.

Mother and Son

Johnnie (4 years old): You smell like poop.

Maria (26 years old): You smell like poop.

Johnnie: You smell like poop and garbage.

Maria: You smell like poop and garbage.

Johnnie: You smell like poop, garbage...and cats.

Maria: .......you win, my friend, you win.

How do you top cats? Really? This kid's a genius. I'm imagining a smell that would most likely come from one of the houses on Hoarders. I should be really offended that he would say such a thing to me, his mother, but instead I'm kind of proud in a twisted way. Like I almost did something right.

Aw, I think he's going to do well in school.

Remember How I Said I Was Going To Start Tanning?

Well, I started and I've successfully burned the crap out of various parts of my body including my boobs and my ass. I would show you a picture but since this is only our third date it's probably inappropriate and I don't want you to think I'm easy. Not yet at least ;).

Anyhoo, I am in a lot of pain. And itchy. Oh boy, am I itchy. And since the worse burns are on my private areas it's not really appropriate to just go ahead and scratch my boobs at the doctor's office or my ass in line at Walmart. I could but I don't think it'd be appreciated.

It's really not my fault I burned, though, it's the stupid fan's fault. There was a fan in the room and I cleverly aimed it right at my head and decided since I'm half Greek, even though I haven't tanned in probably two years and am naturally very pale, that I could totally go the whole 20 minutes in the bed. Totally, right? And since I had the fan blowing cold air on my head I didn't realize that my body was sizzling and sparking at all. Not one bit. So, this is all the fan's fault with it's wonderfully cold, cold deceiving air.

I think I may sue.

Should I Just Be Fat For Vacation?

In less than two weeks, Jeff and I will be on a plane aimed for San Juan, Puerto Rico. This will be our first real vacation in the five years we've been together and will be the week of our third wedding anniversary. We both are crazy excited to go, especially because we'll be sans kids and we never had a honeymoon, but we've both slacked off a little in the working out department.

You see, I had our second child last summer and gained 45 extra pounds and Jeff tends to hibernate for the winter. And, like any other human/bear hybrid, he grows a ridiculously thick beard, doesn't cut his hair, and decides that eating nothing but pizza everyday for three weeks straight is perfectly acceptable behavior. What sucks for me, in a competition sort of way, is that he can diet and work out for three days and drop 20 pounds. At least. I've dieted my ass off (literally and figuratively) but am not yet where I would like my body to be while we're in a paradise type setting. I've gotten the number on the scale to match the number that I was before I got knocked up, and yet, my body still looks...what's a good word for it?...Lumpy. Yes, I am still very lumpy.

I have not quite given up on the hope that I will be in perfect shape when we leave but I have decided that the very least I can do is tan the crap out of my lumps so they are more camoflauged. I figure it'd be a nice courtesy for the people that have to look at me when we're out on the beach. What can I say? I'm a giver.

Here's a pic of where we're going. I seriously cannot wait.


picture courtesy of pictureware.com

Well, Hi There World!

It looks like I've finally jumped onto the 'bloggity blog' bandwagon. Let's see how long this lasts, shall we?

First, I'll introduce myself. I am a married, stay-at-home mother of two boys that used to really be into writing. I used to really enjoy putting my thoughts and feelings down on paper but somewhere along the way it seems like my brain and schedule joined forces and told my writing skill to suck it. I'm really hoping I can get it back again, it's been awhile.

This blog isn't going to be specific in any way. It'll probably be part mommy blog, part storytelling blog, part craft blog, and who knows what else will be thrown into the mix. I'm just hoping that it'll be a fun place to come to while you're slacking off at work or ignoring the kiddos. Just kidding...not really.

Sooooo, on that note, thanks for stopping by!