How did your Valentine's weekend go?

So far? Mine's about like this:

• Woke up to sweet Hubs herding the children downstairs. Unfortunatley, the monitor was in the hall and the parent receiver was still in the bedroom, so I gave up and stumbled downstairs.
• Good news? By registering our Keurig coffee maker online, I was able to order 4 boxes of k-cups for $25 (about $.25 per cup!). Bad news? They probably won't be here until Tuesday.
• Hubs made breakfast for the kiddos. I got to do the dishes when he left to "run errands."
• I went to work where a kid asked me how old I was. First guess was 16 (woo hoo!) When I gave the hint of "I'm married and have 2 kids," the follow-up guess was, "Well, you've got to be at LEAST 60." woo hoo?
• I came home to Nugget who had (yay) not pooped in a diaper in three days, but (boo) hadn't pooped at all meaning I spent some quality time with a crying toddler in our bright blue bathroom (note to all: if you buy a house saying "We are SO going to paint that," and you have kids, you are so NOT going to paint. Anytime soon).

Bright spot? After winning the poop showdown, Strip offered to give me a make-over (hair, make up and accessories). After fixing my hair, she put on some fancy Valentine's glasses. I asked how she was going to do my makeup if I was wearing the glasses, so she took them off and started to work on me.

After sweeping three different colors of eye shadow ABOVE my eyebrows, I asked if she knew what she was doing.

YES!

Just asking because the shadow is starting to mesh with my hairline...

2 minutes later, she was finished. She had already had her make up and accessories, but fixed her hair accordingly. I give you, the finished product:

It all makes sense. The three layers on the eye are for emphasis and the three ABOVE the brow are so you can still see it when the glasses are on! Perfection!

Good thing we were grilling out at home tonight!

(PS That's a celebratory sucker stick in the kid's mouth, not a cigarette!)

Game on.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to skip church which was a good decision for the night since Nugget fell asleep AT the dinner table. Instead, we made it a family game night and the kids had a blast. This week, Strip wanted to do the same, so I told her we'd do it tonight.

After stuffing our faces with spaghetti, we headed down to the basement for some games. The original plan was to play "Hot Potato" because it's easy, keeps Nugget in the zone and neither kid could cheat. Unfortunately, even though the basement is clean and organized, the potato was nowhere to be found. So, we spent the first part of the evening playing "Try My Patience" (or as Milton Bradley calls it, "Chutes and Ladders").

The board is a fold out with a split up the middle, so every time one of my short-armed babies reached to move their player, they would unintentionally lean on the board, right at the split, making all the people fall over and pour to the middle of the board. Nugget is in love with the number three, so he only wanted to move three spaces on all of his turns. Strip kept calculating how many spaces she needed to hit the big ladders or avoid the big chutes, and would try to sneak an extra spin or three in if she didn't get the number she needed on her first spin. And about half-way through the game, Nugget just got bored and wandered off to play with trains and later kept trying to run us over with his toy lawn mower.

I have got to find that potato.

To follow up from my allergy appointment, yes I am still as allergic as I was last year. The epi pen stays, so I'm doing a little online shopping for an epi clutch. A friend of mine's mom works for Coach and while we were in NYC I was looking at these cutie little zip wallets with elastic pen holders. If they made them a LITTLE bit bigger, I could slip my epi pen right in there, but alas, Epi pens are fatter than roller balls. I'm thinking of partnering with Coach to come out with an epi line.

Oh! And to boost my confidence, when I was asking about integrating real food into my diet if when we go to Europe, he said (and I quote), "Normally we can work towards that, but you fall so far off the normal spectrum, I don't think we need to discuss that right now."

Awesome! Ma called me fat and my allergist thinks I'm a freak. 2010 is looking up!

It's hard to believe it's been a year

But today is my checkup with my allergist. I'll be interested to see if I can start incorporating real food back into my diet. Although my allergies have been a pain to get use to, it's kind of been nice staying UNDER my goal weight while still enjoying cheesy mashed potatoes, nice filets and red wine without guilt.

But, Hubs and I want to take a nice little European vacation in a year or so, and I have no desire to learn my allergy list in 5 different languages.

The only other pain is carrying my epi pen. It was fine at first because I have a giant purse that held my wallet, 4 diapers, wipes, juice boxes, cell phone, 6 princesses, 4 cars, my epi pen and still had plenty of room (I'm Mary Poppins!). Now that we're diaper free travelers, It's a pain to lug that giant bag with nothing but my phone, wallet and epi pen. So if I still have to be epi-dependent, I've already picked out a cute little clutch that holds all my nessicities and nothing else (sorry McQueen, Mater and Belle).

Fingers crossed we don't discover anything ELSE I'm allergic to, though.

The joys of potty training continue!

Really? With a title like that, what kind of image did you expect?!

We had a minor setback, and a reminder that I only jinx myself last week. I made the comment to a friend that Nugget was for the most part potty trained, he just refused to poop in the potty, but only pooped in a diaper, so that was fine with me. A diaper at night was better than going through a pack a week.

I said, and I quote, "He NEVER poops in his pants."

JINX!!

That night, I made it my mission to get that kid to poop on the potty. He'd done it a few times before, but never consistently. So, after getting home from church, I pumped him full of prune juice, poured myself a glass of wine, gathered some of his favorite books and was ready.

25 minutes later, the poor child was falling asleep on the potty with his head in my lap. I strapped on a diaper and figured we'd try again tomorrow. Hubs got up with him the next day and obviously the prunes did their magic, so I thought we were good to go, popped on some Maters and headed out. It was a volunteer day for me at preschool, so Nugget was hanging with the office staff. 15 minutes before I was finished, the unthinkable happened. Poop.

Prune juice is like brylcreem in that just a dab will do you, so needless to say, we were riding the prune all.weekend.long.

But Monday was the start of a new week. Back in big boy undies, we spent our day, busy as ever. Late afternoon, I set up wii fit for the kids while I cooked dinner. Ma called (maybe I should stop talking to her on the phone while the kids are awake!), so I was chatting with her and I hear, "Oh. Snotrod SO sad." Toddler translation=I just wet my pants and Snotrod (the character on my underwear) is now sad.

Great. We trudged upstairs, and I tell him we'll just put on our pjs when he tells ME, "No. I need a diaper." Whoa now. If you can ask for a diaper because you need to poop, you can poop on the potty. End of story. After some crying and moaning, I told him I'd get him some juice, so I head to the kitchen to fetch us both a beverage (apple for him, grape for me... fermented) then return to the bathroom ready to wait it out. 2 minutes later, the phone rings. Hubs was calling saying he was almost home (late night for him. I promise I wasn't pouring wine at 4 pm). I return to the bathroom to my crying 2 year-old. And then? I totally lie.

"That was McQueen. He asked to talk to you, but I told him you were in the bathroom. He got excited and asked if you pooped in the potty, but I had to tell him no. He told me you could call him back when you poop in the potty. Would you like to call him?"

"Uh huh."

"Ok, well, if you poop in the potty, we'll call McQueen."

Crap! Literally!

That kid slammed his juice cup on the counter, grabbed my arm with both hands and pooped.

"Now call Queen."

Well, good gravy! Wish I would have tried that one a few months ago! I quickly call back Hubs' cell (praying he wasn't walking in the door), and when he answered, we had this conversation:

Me: McQueen?? Lightening McQueen?!

Hubs: Umm Hello?

Me: Hi! Is this Lightening McQueen?!?!

Hubs: Ummmm. Uh Yeah?

Me: Great McQueen! I have Drew here and he has something very exciting to tell you!!

hand the phone to Nugget

Nugget: No. I wanna talk a Mater.

Me: Oh, Um, McQueen? Is Mater there.

Hubs: Yeah, sure.

Me: (handing the phone to Nugget) Here ya go! It's Mater!!

Nugget: Hi Mater! I squeeze big poop in potty. I eat m&m's.

Hubs: blah blah blah

Nugget: Ok. Bye!

I tell Mater bye and ask Nugget what he said. Waaaaahoooooo!! Very Mater-like. Way to go Hubs :-)

Hubs walked in the door a few seconds later and Nugget was SO excited to tell him about his chat with Mater. He was so excited, he didn't want to sleep in a diaper tonight, so we'll see if we can check "poops in the potty" and "stays dry all night" off the list in one night. Cheers!

C for Creative

This morning I was on the phone with Ma, and Strip started the tip-toe reach for a bag on my desk. I had already told her to leave it alone, but being 4, she "forgot." Not surprising 11 seconds later, I hear the shattering of glass.

Yay Mondays!

I told Ma I had to go collect all the little pieces of my bud vase/pen holder. The base is pewter, so it was fine, but there was no hope for the glass part. Here's a post-shatter pic:

She started crying hysterically. I told her I wasn't mad, but that's what happens when you don't listen to mommy.

Can we get another one?!

No, it's old and was given to me as a gift, so I'm not sure where it came from.

Can't we fix it?!?!

No, there are too many tiny pieces to glue back together.

WAAAAAHHHHHAAAAA!

She then dug around my desk (hello?! Did we just learn nothing?!) and disappeared into the basement with scissors and tape. About 20 minutes, she appeared, still tear-stained, holding this:

Notice the hand etched side? And it was already filled with pens and crayons. Gotta love that kid!

We gotta work on her...

The kiddos wanted to do wii fit yesterday, and since it's been a while since they weighed in, I whipped out the balance board. Our sweet little wii Family (plus UP and Beck) came running on the screen.

Strip: Hahahahahahaha! Look how fat daddy is!!

Me: Hey that's not nice.

Strip: Sorry.

Me: You shouldn't call daddy fat, it could hurt his feelings.

Strip: No it won't. He's not here!

YIKES!

Never thought I'd do/say/think/try this!

That about sums up my weekend! Like I said earlier, I packed up my pity party and headed to Jersey for a SUPER quick trip. And thus began my journey into doing/saying/thinking/trying new and different things. Starting with....

Airport Security

I am a seasoned traveler, and in no way get upset when flying. I do get a little worried now that I have kids because I don't want to die and leave them, but I think that just gives fuel to the fire to take someone OUT if they even looked like they were going to mess with my plane. I understand airport security and the reasons why we have to go through all the motions. Heck, I've even said I'd be totally fine if we all had to go into a room and put on special flying scrubs if that meant it was safer to fly. So the first thing I'd NEVER thought I'd think was "well this isn't comfortable" while going through the security measures.

Our airport has one of the fancy new x-ray machines. Totally open, clear booth and the screens are in a separate area, so I'm hoping pretty sure no one sees your insides. I go through the normal scanner and don't beep which was exciting because I had on this bra with an extra hook that's metal so you can change the straps around and I was worried it would set off the alarm. I'm then standing on the other end of the open xray staring at a very large man. We exchange an uneasy glance, and I say, "So, do I need to go through this, too?"

He looks me up and down for an awkward 11 seconds and says, "Yeah. Come on in." Um. Ew?

I then have to assume some spray tanning positions while a booth full of men stare at screens a few feet away, all the while, I'm reminding myself of the news story I watched when our airport got these and picturing myself looking like this:

Totally not me. I was not packin' heat. But you get the idea?! Little much for 8 am. right?! Well, apparently Security Dude (S.D) thought I was packin' something because I had to "Stand on the mat and DO NOT look behind you" (cue me looking over my shoulder), just as my flying buddy Beck was coming through the normal, no one sees your booty, scanner with a look of fear in her eyes. I asked what we were doing, and S.D. told me we were "waiting for a female attendant to thoroughly search me." Well fantastic. Can someone please upgrade me to business class now so I can get a drink. I learned during a post 9/11 flight back from NYC that airport security has no sense of humor, especially when feeling you up, so it's best to keep smart remarks to yourself, so I stood, not looking behind me, while we waited on my "date" to arrive.

While we waited, S.D. asked, again, if I had anything in my left front pocket. I dug around, and told him no, and offered to turn my pocket inside out. He declined my offer and when my date arrived, she rubbed my thigh and reached in my pocket, clearing me to go. I gathered my shoes, coat and carry on and did the walk of shame past the booth of googlie eyes who had just seen me naked. Awesome. (And I totally got us upgraded to business, just so you know).

I wish you would have been shot in the face.

Who thinks that, right? ME! The sole purpose of my visit was to see one of my college roomies who's husband has been fighting his way out of a coma since Feb. 2007. He was in a helicopter crash while serving as an army ranger, and if you saw the picture of the crash site, you'd be amazed that anyone made it out in one piece much less alive. The human brain is both amazing and fickle, and I'll pull my soap box out later, but for now I'll just say, comas suck. How is it, that a super strong, amazing man can have a head injury, look totally normal, but not be able to get out of this coma, and another person can have HALF of their brain shot out of their head, and WALK out of the hospital. So it was this visit where I looked at her Hubs and said, "Why couldn't you get shot in the head?!"

On a side note, he's ROCKING the Jersey treatment. His wife (Ry) left the room and I got in his face and said, "We're taking her to the city tonight, so you won't see her until tomorrow ok? Can you tell us BYE? BYE BYE! Come on! Deep breath and say BYE BYE" as I put my hand on his chest and helped move his lips. Nothing. Not even a deep breath to try. Jerk. Then it hit me! I took his face in my hands and looked him in the eye. "You are just ticked that we are taking her out for the night aren't you, and that's why you won't say bye?!"

That man started kicking and moving his arms like crazy (well, coma crazy), so we kissed him good-bye and hopped on a train!

Sushi

I ate sushi! Well, it was a California roll, so Hubs says it doesn't count, but it's on the sushi menu, and I didn't make a throw up face or have to use my epi pen, so I call it a success! Yay me! I'm a big kid now!

I could totally get use to Jersey!

This was a text I sent Hubs. His response was, "No. You can't." I had very specific, preconceived notions about what Jersey would be, but I was totally wrong. (This part) was BEAUTIFUL!! Adorable small town feel, delicious Jewish delis, GORGEOUS houses with a perfect view of NYC. LOVED it! Who knew?!

Do you love Jesus?

Yes. Yes I do. When we hopped off the train, we were trying to figure out the best way to get to the hotel. Ry suggested the subway, which I was fine with, but we were going to have to figure out the route to take. And we were staying at the Waldorf Astoria. I'm not sure too many people arrive at the W A via subway, so we splurged for a cab. Go ahead and picture an NYC cabbie. After the four girls pour ourselves into his cab, he pulls away from the curb and says,

"Are you gentiles?"

I've always read stories of martyrs who are asked if they believe in Jesus with a knife to their throat, and they say yes and then get killed, and I think, "I would totally do that. What better way to go." But honestly? Being in this cab, and opening with this question, scared the heck out of me. I immediately thought, "Thank goodness Ry's friend my new friend Ive was sitting in the front seat," followed by, "He's going to kill us. He's been waiting all day for some 'gentiles' to hop in his cab so he can push a button and kill us all!!!"

After laughing, uncomfortably for a second, I break the ice with, "Wow! Whatever happened to chatting about the weather?! Ha ha ha..." A few minutes into the ride, we realize that he is listening to the Bible on Tape. DOH! God wins again! However, I told my fellow riders, I was glad we had Jesus on our side because we almost met him before we could complete our three minute cab ride.

I'm not ready yet

NYC was great! We spent the day shopping, and here's a brief rundown of the purchases:

*Manolo Blahnik hot heels

* Burberry (not your classic plaid) wallet

* Burberry (not your classic) bag

* Coach clutch

* some clothes

What did I come home with? Some W A shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and a W A wine glass. Woo hoo!

When I got home Sunday, I figured it was the day to take June Bug's food and treats to the dogs at the Humane Society. We have a BEAUTIFUL H.S. They were super busy, but after I gave my donation (and didn't throw myself down on the floor screaming) I allowed myself to wander the dog hall. I did not go IN the kennel, but I saw about 9 pups. I looked in each of their baby eyes, and felt...nothing. They weren't mine. They weren't right for us. I just wasn't ready...yet.

I came home and went to toss the paper in the recycling bin and there was MORE dog food sitting in the garage. Ugh! She's everywhere! But packing up my pity party was the best thing I could do. It totally put things in perspective and was a welcomed get away after losing Bug.

Both kids (and Hubs) were fine without me. I did wonder if I'd come home to see them both in diapers (kids, not Hubs) with goldfish scattered in the basement and a benadryl haze in their eyes, but they were both dressed, clean and drug free, so woo hoo! Wonder where our next girls weekend will be...