Not ready for that one.

Conversation with the kid last night:

Me: Baby Julian is almost here. Are you ready to be a big sister and help mama with Julian?

AJ: Baby Julian in you belly. I got food in my belly, Nanny has two babies in her belly and you got Julie in you belly.

Me: That's right. Mama has baby Julian in her belly, but he's going to come out soon. And we are going to love him and play with him. You are going to teach him how lucky he is to have such great parents.

AJ: Mama, how baby Julie gonna come out you belly?

Me: Uuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmm. He's. Just. Gonna. Come. Out.

AJ: Yep, he just gonna come out. (Long pause) I want juice.

Me: Awesome, let's get juice.

So not ready for that conversation. I figure we can revisit the subject again in about 30 years. You know, she is ready for her first boyfriend.

I'm the best mom ever, or I have scarred my child for life...

Today was the first day of "big girl" school for the kid. As previously noted, Sally can't go to school. For a while it seemed like this would be the end of the world, especially when two Sally's became a night-time thing at our house. Being the laid back mother I am, I chose to simply ignore the issue and let it play out on it's own. (I know, I should totally write a parenting book!) We never told the kid that Sally couldn't go to school, we simply told her that school was so awesome that unicorns would rain from the sky and she would get to play all day long. In my head, I've been trying to find a way to cheat the system... I mean... make the transition easier for the kid and I came up with a brilliant idea.

I dismembered Sally.

Calm your freaking horses people. I didn't do it in front of the kid and this is Sally #5, so we've still got Sally's to spare. I came up with the idea of a "Sally Blanket" that she could bring to school. The rules, as I choose to understand them, are that they cannot have any stuffed animals that go back and forth on a daily basis due to germs and lice being carted around by such play things. I figured a small blanket with a little hippo patch does not fall into that category.

I give you, Sally Blanket!

Sally Blanket has all the hippo-ness of Sally Doll but without the stuffing, or the body, or the limbs, or the music box. Basically, it's just a flat Sally head sewn onto a beach towel. The kicker is the neck tie. Miss Adelaide wraps her little fingers around Sally's neck tie as she is falling asleep. It is my hope that this decapitated, flattened Sally will be comfort enough for her during nap time. Either that, or she'll flip her freaking lid and be forever traumatized by the floating hippo head that haunts her nap time. It dawned on me last night that perhaps I didn't think this through.

Nevertheless, she awoke this morning uber excited about going to school! She pretended like she wanted to stay in bed all day with her Pappa, but I know deep down inside she was overcome with the joy of play-school. Can't you tell?

I would like to note that she was showing off her "Stally Blanket" this morning. She had some minor issues getting dressed. I gave her the purple shoes, she wanted the pink shoes, and so on and so forth. Eventually, I got her dressed and in the car with all her school paraphernalia. Half way to school this happened:

AJ: Where my Tally Mama?

Me: She's at home baby. Sally can't go to school.

AJ: Her can't go school?

Me: Nope. Only big girls like Addie Jo and big boys like Adler get to go to school.

AJ: Yep, I go to school.

And that was it. I was clearly more worried about this whole "no Sally" policy than she seems to be. We got to school and grab her bag (which contained the awesomely awesome Sally Blanket) and she grabbed my hand as we walked inside the building. You should know that my daughter hates to hold my hand ANY where we go, so I began to get nervous.

We walked in and she saw all the elementary kids getting ready to walk to the BIG big kid school and she had a minor freak out. "Pick me up! Pick me up!" When we got into her classroom there were a few other children playing and this terrified the living out of her for a moment. Because what's scarier than toddlers playing with building blocks? She dug her head into my shoulders as I walked around doing the look-how-awesome-this-is-and-don't-you-want-to-play-with-it game. We stashed her items in her cubby and she was still clinging to me. After a couple more minutes she picked up her head and actually looked around.

AJ: (in a very low voice) I see dinosaurs.

Me: Yeah, they have LOTS of dinosaurs! (I was unaware that dinosaurs would be the thing to perk her up.)

AJ: MAMA! HER HAS BABIES!!!!

ME: Heck yeah she has babies! Which are basically the coolest little toys since sliced bread!

AJ: I get down. I go play!

That was it. No fussing. No crying. A few minutes of hesitation and then she was off. I told her I was leaving and she gave me a hug and kiss and went back to her playing. Neither one of us cried.

However, that was hours before nap time so I'm not sure how the Sally Blanket went over when put to the test. Last I heard she was playing outside and loving life. Which makes me miss my tiny baby just a little. Which makes me want to eat strawberries and ice cream a whole lot.

UPDATE: Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnnndddddd, because I'm a mom, I called to check on her and she had a GREAT day. Although, her teacher did note that she spent most of nap time rubbing the patch on her blanket.

Guess I'm kind of a genius after all.

Wordless Wednesday- A step in wrong direction

Sally- we have a problem.

It's Thursday. Be thankful humans!

Time for our weekly round-up of Thankfulness! This week I am extremely grateful for the following:

-Words with Friends. It gives me something to do while sitting at the doctor's office waiting out the hour long "do you have diabetes while you're pregnant" test. Now I'm just hoping I don't fail again, cause the three hour test is a bitch.

-Calendars and day planners. If you know me, you know that these help make me slightly less forgetful than normal.

-Frozen grapes! It's like a little Popsicle in your mouth. Try it, you'll thank me later.

-The little fan behind my desk that was graciously loaned out to me by a co-worker. Big Mama is melting in this heat and that little fan keeps me from sweating all day.

-The little old lady who has kept the kid since we moved home. Miss Adelaide starts big girl school in less than two weeks and I'm going to miss the way she smells when I pick her up in the afternoon. It's a mix between rice and gravy and rose perfume.

-The Vampire Diaries. Don't judge me. The guys are hot and it's fun to escape for an hour at a time. Seriously, they are really really hot. No, really, molten lava hot.

-Uncle Bill. He gives my husband work on his days off.

-Pop-up Post-It note dispenses.

That's all people. Hope you are all having a great week!

Beware of the sun...screen

At some point in the last few months, my husband stumbled across a documentary about the dangers of sunscreen. Apparently, it's killing coral reefs, increasing cancer rates and shrinking men's penises all over the world. I googled it and just in case you're interested here is the page that tells you just how horrible sunscreen is. Apparently, it also has a "gender bending" effect. (Well, the same could be said about Liza but she isn't banned from our house. Yet.)

The hubs is of the "olive toned" humans while I am of the "burn like a shrimp on a grill toned" humans. For example, before we got married we went on a cruise with 22 other couples. I applied SPF 70 (it was the highest at the time) four times a day AND wore an obnoxiously large hat and still got a sunburn so severe that my skin whelped up and formed large nasty blisters. I spent the second half of the cruise stuck under deck bitching about the lack of towel animals we received in our room.

Luckily, our daughter has taken his skin tone, along with all his other physical traits (seriously, sometimes I wonder who her mother is) and she has had very little issues with sunlight exposure. Never the less, I still slather her up with SPF 50 each time we take her swimming. My darling husband feels this is unnecessary.

Hubs: Hey babe. You girls went swimming today?

Me: Yep. We had lots of fun frolicking in the water. I used SPF 100, reapplied twice and still got sunburned. I only put SPF 50 on the kid this morning before we left and she got a shade or two darker? It's so not fair that she has better skin than me. I guess I'm glad she doesn't have my...

Hubs: WHAT?! YOU COATED MY CHILD WITH THAT POISONOUS SLIME? DIDN'T I TELL YOU ABOUT THAT SHOW I WATCHED?!

*** did I mention we have a pension for over-reaction at my house***

Me: Good lard! I'm not going to leave her with no sun protection just because you watched some ridiculous show about the awfulness that is sunscreen.

Hubs: AND YOU PUT ON SPF 100?!?! That probably soaked into your skin and is shrinking our unborn son's penis RIGHT NOW!

Me: Well, the last thing this world needs is more giant penises!

Since my husband is not a scientist, I will continue to slather my child and self with the highest level sun protection available on the market. Maybe it is dangerous (if you drink it in large volumes), but as long as the real scientist tell me to use it, I'm going to use it. And if by some chance my testicles shrink, then so be it.

Jesus H- it's not a bloody steak.

Saturday morning the kid, the hubs and I all slept late. We ended up skipping breakfast and meeting my family for lunch at the local diner. The kid ate some fruit and a few french fries, but nothing that could be called a meal by anyone's standards.

When we got home after lunch, she said, "I wanna eat, Mama." After staring into the pantry and refrigerator for almost 15 minutes, she announced her desire for a peanut butter sandwich.

Since my child eats only fruit snacks and rice and gravy, I was a little more than shocked.

Me: Addie Jo- are you SURE you want a peanut butter sandwich?

A: I wann pea-butta!

Me: If I fix you a peanut butter sandwich, you WILL eat it. Do you understand?

A: Yes, ma'am. I EAT PEA-BUTTAAA! Please!

And so, I fixed her a one slice-folded over peanut butter sandwich. She licked it and decided it was not the sandwich she wanted.

The rest of our day went something like this:

A: I want snack, Mama.

Me: You have a peanut butter sandwich to eat.

A: I want chips, Mama.

Me: I fixed you a peanut butter sandwich , Adelaide.

A: I don't like pea-butter.

Me: Well, that's what you asked for AND THAT'S ALL YOU CAN HAVE!

At this point she took a bite of the sandwich and the look on her face told me that she was utterly offended by both the taste and texture of this vile sandwich I was forcing her to eat. In her defense, the bread was getting hard around the edges from sitting on the counter all day. In my defense, SHE ASKED FOR A DAMNED PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH!

At some point, the movie "Mommy Dearest" started playing in my head. For those of you who weren't required to watch this movie in high school (I can't remember, but it was either shown in Home Ecc as a "How not to raise children" video or in Drama Class as a "How to over-react to wire hangers" video), the rest of this post may not make sense to you.

There is a scene where Joan Crawford serves her children not-quite-yet-dead steaks for lunch.

Joan: Eat your steak!

Christina: It's raw.

Joan: It's not raw, it's rare.

The things are bleeding all over the table and her daughter refuses to eat it. Later that night, the steak is again offered to the child, who still refuses to eat it and so on and so forth. In this case, I can understand a child not wanting to eat a half-dead animal that she didn't ask for. However, a peanut butter sandwich is perfectly cooked, and quite freaking delicious if you ask me.

And so, the battle of the peanut butter sandwich wore on. She asked for food and I keep offering her the sandwich. And I would have kept offering her the sandwich, except when her father got home he walked in, saw the sandwich and ate it himself. Clearly, he was not aware of the lesson I was attempting to set forth.

When I die, I might leave them both out of my will. For reasons that will be clear to them.

(Again, if you didn't see Mommy Dearest, that last line isn't nearly as funny.)

Also, if she keeps giving me these eyes, we may have a "no wire hangers" situation erupt at our house soon. ***Note the use of Sally to push away the plate with the offensive sandwich on it. ***

Thankful Thursday People

The history of thankful Thursdays is long and awesome. It started with about five women having shitty days and deciding it was time to force ourselves to be thankful about something, ANYTHING. It has grown over the years and our email chain contains anywhere from 20-30 women, depending on who is participating. I shall share my thankfulness with you now.

Today I am thankful for many things. I have to be to keep from focusing on the throbbing pain in my right breast from having been stung SEVEN times last night by a wasp. Good for nothing insects.

-For Bonkie, who is getting a chance to be an annoying woman who thinks of nothing but babies and motherhood. I still expect you to come pole-dancing with me after these babies are born.
-For Amanda, Kristen and Roy- who watch Swamp People and make me laugh.
-For my in-laws, who finally came home from California. I no longer have to tell the kid she is too young to go to "Caliporniya".
-For watermelon. I swear I've eaten 20 pounds in the last two weeks, but it has to be better than 20 pounds of cake so I'll keep eating.
-For curling irons, because my hair is not so cooperative without one.
-For Everything Bagels with WW Cream Cheese and a tall glass of milk. It's the only thing in the morning that doesn't make me what to vomit.
-For beaches. Even though I can't seem to make it to one this year, I know they are out there. Someday I hope to be sitting on a beach with a cold drink and a trashy book.
For return policies. Bought the kid a pair of size 6 shoes for school only to get home and realize she's in a size 7.

Peace, Love and Curling Irons.

Losing Sally

This is Sally.

Sally joined our family on May 29, 2009. For those of you in the know, this is also Miss Adelaide's birthday. When the doctor said, "It's a girl.", (I'm not using an exclamation point, because she didn't use one. My doctor was a bitch, but that's another story.) my sister ran out and bought a host of lovely pink things to welcome her god-daughter. Among the lovely outfits and pink hats, was Sally. She plays "Braham's Lullaby" and has been adored by the kid since day one.

Now, I have been told in the past that we need to work on separating her from Sally, but I have had no desire to do so. Miss Adelaide loves Sally. Sally comforts her. Also, I know that one day she will grow up and no longer cling to Sally the way she does now. Me, however, she will always need and adore. I figure she'll only be two for so long, so why rush it. Sally has been known to cure hurt fingers, mend broken hearts, fix sad faces and lull Miss Adelaide to sleep within minutes. Note the sleepiness:

Why am I going on about a pink stuffed hippo like some animal obsessed freak? Because the kid will be starting "school" in three weeks time and I was notified on Friday that Sally will not be allowed to attend. Apparently the state feels that small stuffed items carry lice and germs, so the child care facility has banned all such items. "But surely she can have her during nap time?" Negative. No Sally. No way. No how.

Being the pregnant, overly-emotional mother I've turned into, I cried. And it's not because I'm upset about having to take Sally away, and it's not because I think she will have a total hissy fit when it comes to nap time (okay- so I kinda think she will, but at least I won't have to be there to see it). I'm sad because I'm not ready for her to be old enough to not need Sally anymore. I knew there would come a time when she wouldn't need Sally (like when she gets married), I just didn't think it would happen so soon.

So parental units (or whoever else is listening to my obscure ramblings), any suggestions? We never had a pacifier issue, so I've never had to work to take anything away from a child before. I'm sure there are a few hard-core parents who are thinking, "Just take the damned thing from her and don't look back." You're suggestion is dually noted. Thanks so much for that helpful insight.

Any other suggestions?

The kid is getting too smart.

The kid has been asking to go to California. Her Nana and Poppy are in California and she doesn't seem to understand the distance between Louisiana and California. We've been telling her she can't go because she is too little.

That prompted this conversation:

Kid (packs a bag of crackers and Barbies, puts her baby in the stroller): Bye mama. See you later.
Me: Bye Addie Jo. Where you going?
Kid: To Calipornya.
Me: You can't go to California. You are too little. It's time for bed, come over here and pick up your toys.
Kid: Ummmmm, I too little to pick toys.

Awesome. So now our days go like this:

Me: Let's go potty.
Kid: I too little to potty.

Me: Can you come help Mama with the clothes? (which she does, in fact, love to do.)
Kid: I too little to help clothes.

Me: Time to brush you teeth and get your jammies.
Kid: I too little to bru teet and jammies.

We may have created a monster. A very litte monster.

Cucumbers and Wednesdays

Today is Wednesday and I found myself craving a cucumber. Since I have recently re-joined Weight Watchers, I knew I had some in the office fridge. I grabbed all the proper cucumber cutting tools and mindlessly began making myself a snack. Then it happened.

There I stood, in the kitchen at work, cutting a cucumber and holding back tears. Because today is Wednesday and no one could grow a cucumber like my grandfather.

Every Wednesday, for many years, my family picks up the grand kids and goes visit at my grandparents house. It's a day to laugh and visit and love. But it's not the same anymore. When my grandfather passed away everything changed. While others rejoiced over the mid-week hump, I often find myself sad driving home and knowing he won't be there.

When someone dies we go through many stages of sadness. There is the initial sadness that haunts you 24 hours a day. The sadness that you can't escape even in sleep. Then there is the day to day sadness. Those moments when you realize that they are really gone and your life is forever changed. After a few months it's the creeping sadness. You feel it on holidays and birthdays, trying to beat it back while you strive to enjoy the day. After a few more months it's the memory sadness. I think this one is the worst. It's driving past the Mowata store and having a craving for boudin and not knowing why that makes you want to cry. It's setting up the chairs at the campground and feeling that your still waiting on the rest of your family to arrive. It's Moe Bandy on the radio and having to pull over on the side of the road because you can't see through the tears. And today, it's cutting a cucumber on a Wednesday and knowing that I'll never have one of his cucumbers again.

My grandfather was amazing. He was funny and caring and he pinched really hard. He had false teeth that he would scare the children with. He was a diabetic and our family would often catch him at the grocery store buying sweets. One day he was caught in the grocery store parking lot eating a small loaf of french bread in his truck. My grandmother watched his food intake, so he would have to eat his goodies in the truck between the store and his house, which was less that one mile. He loved to camp and we loved to camp with him. He is the man I was named after, and I couldn't imagine a better person's name to have.

There is a campground in heaven and he is there. Walking around with his fly-swatter, listening to Moe Bandy, sneaking candy in the camper and giving cucumbers away to all who visit. I know he watches over me and I know that someday we'll sit together and visit again. And I already know just what I'll say when I see him again......

"Heellllllooooo, J.C."