...A Day in the Life...

5:50-6:30am - B's alarm goes off. Repeatedly. Until I turn it off because he never, ever hears it. I prod and poke him and whine about the alarm until he finally rouses and heads downstairs to start his day. I also threaten him within an inch of his life if he wakes Baby B as he passes through his nursery on his way to the stairs.

6:30am - Offer up a small prayer that Baby B sleeps for another 20-30 minutes.

6:32am - Prayer failed. Baby B is up. And so am I.

6:32am-7:00am - Nurse, diaper change, pull out toys and play on the floor while watching the local news. Prevent Baby B from entering the bathroom while daddy gets ready.

7:00am - Watch opening credits for The Today Show, note interest in Meredith's power suit, Anne's feature story on the Octo-mom, Matt and Al's latest adventure, and covet Natalie's hair. Kiss husband goodbye, admire Baby B staring out the window, waving, as daddy speeds away.

7:00-8:00am - Straighten up first floor while Baby B plays. Start coffee. Gather laundry. Fix coffee and a sippy of milk for Baby B. Step on blocks that are strewn across the entire rug. Put blocks away. Baby B dumps blocks again, within minutes of me picking them up. Build a couple block of castles that usually last .2 seconds before Baby B's open hand sends them tumbling down. Baby B loses interest in blocks and now is eyeing my cell phone sitting at toddler eye-level on the sofa.

8:00am - Kashi Strawberry Waffles in the toaster, slice peaches (or banana), scoop up Baby B and wrestle place him gently into his highchair. Listen as he babbles wildly about how slow the whole toaster process is. Present him with sippy of milk which he immediately chucks on the floor. Baby B eats (remember this process?) and I read an article or two of Parent's magazine, or check out blog updates. Drink another cup of coffee.

8:22am - Breakfast is over, waffle is consumed, and peach and/or banana has morphed into sludge that is now serving as Baby B's latest hair product. Spiking or matting hair with said product is optional, though an option that he regularly chooses to exercise.

8:22-8:28 - Sing the Clean Up song from Barney as I approach Baby B with the dreaded washcloth. He rocks his head back and forth, enjoying the tune, until he realizes that washcloth is approaching his face. Screams loudly, drowning out song, grabbing washcloth from my hand and sends it to the floor. I wipe up some peach-banana sludge from floor while picking up washcloth, rinse, and repeat the whole process until he can safely be removed from high chair without applying goop to anything he touches.

8:28-9:00am - Clean kitchen, run dishwasher (didn't I just run it last night?!), hold Baby B while running the vacuum since it currently scares him when it's on.

9:00am - Gather Baby B, paci, and G and put all three down for three hour nap. Praise Jesus that he still takes such a brilliantly long morning snooze.

9:00am-Noon - Switch caffeine drip from coffee to Diet Coke #1. Blog. Email. Shower. Complete school work. Start laundry. Clip coupons. Take inventory of pantry and fridge. Make grocery list and check out Money Saving Mom, Centsible Sawyer, and Cincinnati Cents for notable good deals. Dry hair. Check out celeb gossip on People. Check the 11 voice mails I let pile up over the weekend. Return calls. Straighten hair. Straighten toys, while on the phone with Sallie Mae fighting about student loans. Curse the fact that I didn't obtain a degree in elementary education the first time around, and even had to resort to student loans in the first place. Call mom and complain. Blog while talking on the phone. Pay bills. Apply make-up. Pack diaper bag for afternoon excursion. Crack open Diet Coke #2. Fold laundry. Get dressed. Take out garbage. Unload dishwasher. Start macaroni and cheese on stove. Contemplate a power nap on the couch before I hear Baby B calling me upstairs.

Noon - Lunch with Sweet Precious. Macaroni and cheese everywhere. Second serving for me, while spoon-feeding yogurt to Baby B to avoid mess. Repeat clean-up process on boy child, but opt to tidy up lunch mess until he's down for another nap to maximize errand-running time.

12:30-12:40pm - Scrape macaroni and cheese off of Baby B's forhead, while wrangling him into a darling pair of overalls. Realize he's pulled half-a-dozen wipes from container while I went to fetch socks. Smother him with kisses while telling him what a little stinker he is.

12:40-2:00pm - Target. Kroger. Walmart. Or some other combination of events that will inevitably require animal cracker bribery and a juice box to compensate for the shopping cart restraint system.

2:00pm - Arrive at home. Diaper change. Down for nap #2.

2:00-4:30pm - Snack on another bowl of mac-n-cheese while cleaning up the kitchen. Begin thinking about dinner. Thaw ground beef for burritos. More laundry. Diet Coke #3. Blog. Finish any tasks not completed during first nap.

4:30pm-5:00pm - Baby B awakes. Snack of Cheez-Its and Juicy Juice. Wonder if it's nutritionally sound for Cheez-Its to be that orange. Doesn't matter anyway, since he'd rather stomp on them on the floor than actually eat them.

5:00-6:30pm - Play outside. Wait for daddy to come home. Start dinner. Play outside some more. Pace street in the wagon, watching for daddy. Relish the moment when Baby B recognizes daddy's car coming down the street. Happily hand-off sweet boy child for ten minutes worth of dinner prep.

6:30pm-6:50pm - Dinner with my boys. Recount day's events with husband. Watch Baby B grab handfuls of dinner and shove them haphazardly into his mouth, most of which falls onto his highchair tray or the floor. Decide not to care and rerun the sweeper post-dinner. Clean kitchen with B's help. Baby B toddles beneath us, extracting dirty silverware all the while. Lovely.

6:50-7:30pm - Play outside with boys. Try to convince Baby B that grass is not toxic to the tootsies as he opts for the concrete sidewalk instead.

7:30-8:00pm - Bathtime. Jammies. Nurse. Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or Pat the Bunny, followed by some superb vocals by mommy on her night. Prayers. Kisses. Lights out. (B and I regularly rotate nighttime duties, except for the whole nursing thing of course...)

8:00-Midnight - Glass of Yellow Tail. Sit on front porch and gab with B. Visit with the neighbors on the front lawn. Straighten house. Bowl of ice cream. Blog stalk. Etc.

Midnight - Read until eyes start to shut. Bedtime.

{While I'm sure you're thrilled to read the to-the-minute details of my daily doings, I wrote this mostly because I want written proof of what my days are like. I've not done so well at keeping up the baby book. Or journaling by hand. This was an alternative. Happy Tuesday!}

Mighty Monday!

Let's take a day to celebrate all the things we might have done over the past week. Feel free to join in and leave a comment so we visit your post too :D

Um, I might have promised you that I would rig up a MckLinky, but I might be too lazy to fool with it (and I'm sure it's all very easy), so I'll continue to post mighty big promises and hope that I'm not letting you down.

I might have been SUPER PUMPED about the coupons that came in the paper yesterday. Enough so that I might have gone back out later in the day to pick up another paper so I can double fist the deals.

I might be a hair excited about starting school next week.

I might have initially typed hare on accident, though I don't believe you can measure excitement in rabbits.

I might complain about how I can't wait for summer break, though, once school actually begins.

I might be staring a big, fat mess in the face right now.

I might have accepted my MIL's generous offer to send chicken over for dinner, since she knows how to operate a grill and all. I might not have the slightest idea how to start one.

I might have asked the Kroger employee if she would mind restocking the free cookie stash, so that I could occupy Baby B while I sped through the aisles.

I might have given him four. They might have been little, though. In my defense.

I might have also stupidly given Baby B a cup full of Cheez-Its which promptly found their way onto the hardwood floor. I did, however, save them from his happy feet before they wound up crushed into a million tiny little pieces.

While I might enjoy the entertainment value provided by the endless number of dump trucks and Caterpillars cruising down the street, I am sick and tired of them thinking our front yard is their personal parking space. Rrrrrr.

My son might be holding a fairy princess wand in this picture. I might not tell his dad.

My favorite girl might be three.

That might be all, folks. Have a Mighty Monday!

Flaws? Me, have flaws????

Kate, over at Sugar & Spice, did an interesting post yesterday, titled Show Us Your Flaws. She brought up a good point - we mostly post the good, instead of the bad or the ugly, on our blogs. I don't know about everyone else, but I purposely leave out anything that could embarrass or hurt the feelings of those I love. I even consider the fact that Baby B will not be a baby forever, nor enjoy his mother posting about anything that could cause extra noogies in the lockers when he's in high school someday. Or whatever crazy things boys will be doing to each other sometime in the 2020s. I probably don't even want to know.

This is why I left the details of his surgery out the other day - because that's his business and not my right to go blabbing it to the entire bloggy world. And, to be honest, y'all were respectful enough to not even ask, which I thought was very sweet. Instead, you focused on his safety and provided encouraging thoughts and prayers. I have the best BFFs, I really do.

I digress...

So, while I may leave out the fact that B and I regularly argue about the way I leave the mailbox lid up repeatedly or how he constantly drinks all the milk, nor do I describe how crazy my husband made me when he brought home ONE HUNDRED 5-inch binders and LEFT THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR, I don't mind putting myself out there at all.

So, I'll happily show off my flaws, and hope that I don't lose friends as a result ;)

• I bite my nails. Ferociously. Down to the nitty gritty nubs. It's a terrible, nasty habit that I wish I could break. But, I've done it since I was like four, and no amount of anti-nail biting serum or acrylic can stop me. I'm considering hypnotism...
• I rarely drink water. I substitute it with Diet Coke. Lots and lots of Diet Coke. Very early in the morning when others are downing fruit juices and milk, I'm washing down my breakfast with caramel-colored phenylalanine.
• I hate to clean the bathroom. And change my sheets. {Ick. That's terrible!} So, they get cleaned infrequently.
• One word: laundry. Three words: never gets done.
• I talk loud and fast. Sometimes I type the same way. Hence, the many grammatical/spelling errors you sometimes see in my posts. Usually, if I don't find them myself, my friend Allison or my husband calls me out.
• I never return library books on time, and have owed outrageous amounts before (like, twice the cost of the actual book that wasn't returned).
• I wait to fill up my tank until it's faaaaaar below a quarter of a tank. Fortunately, I have never been completely empty before. Knocking on wood.
• I absolutely stink at writing thank-you notes. Or sending them, at least.
• Sometimes I procrastinate, but I tend to do my best work under pressure - so it's part flaw and part genius all at the same time.
• I watch lots of webisodes on MTV.com, namely The Hills, The City, and 16 and Pregnant. I'm 26, so I'm sure that I'm on the outskirts of their target market, but it's like an addiction.

I'm sure there are many, many more, but I have school work to do, so hopefully now you feel better about yourself ;)Don't forget, tomorrow is Mighty Monday! Come back and play :D

Prayers Please...UPDATED!

{Please see update following original post}

And, yes, that is Baby B laying on G on the nasty hospital floor.

{Original Post}

Hey, BFFs! If you wouldn't mind, say a prayer for Sweet Precious tomorrow. We're headed to Children's Hospital to have a little procedure done, which unfortunately requires anesthesia. Blah. I am not looking forward to it.

And the poor little guy can't even have breakfast or nurse until after it's over, which should hopefully be by noon. Totally not fun.

Anyway, it's nothing major, but we'd love the prayers!

PS. Make sure you pick up your own Baby In A Box while supplies last ;)

{EDITED TO ADD}

Well, it was a bit more of a surgery than we initially thought, but all is well.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:00am (you do the math to figure out what time the Babbling household had to be up by), and since we had express check-in forms, we were in our room in no time. Which was kind of nice since we didn't have to chase Baby B all around the waiting room for the next hour - which was expansive and full of people and things to get into. However, we did have to play the you can't play with that game in a room the size of a walk-in closet as we defended a variety of expensive medical equipment from our curious little man.

Anyway, we spent the next hour being prepped for the surgery - Baby B's height, weight, and vitals were checked. We answered lots of questions - repeatedly attesting to the fact that he had no known allergies (I bet they asked at least 30x - safety, I know). And Baby B explored every nook and cranny of the tiny room, charming the hospital staff, and talking loudly on our cell phones to his imaginary friends. I'm surprised the phones made it through the whole ordeal since it seemed to be the only toy he wanted to play with, and he repeatedly dropped it and re-dropped it on the floor.

We mat the surgical staff, and I lost it when the anesthesiologist discussed her role in the procedure. We initially thought he'd have a local anesthetic during the operation in addition to being put to sleep, only to find out that they were doing a caudal block that involved numbing him from the waist down via a shot at the base of his tailbone. It sounded a lot like an epidural.

Mommy was not excited about that (hadn't been mentioned until this morning), and many a tear were blinked away as I tried to keep it together as she continued to discuss all the ifs that could occur as a result. That was so not fun.

We waited a little longer before they summoned us to the OR, where we planned to be present as they gassed him (doesn't that just sound awful?!). However, much to our disliking, and despite that we were told we would get to be there while sleep was induced, they took Baby B out of our arms and he went in alone. We kissed him a million times and told him we loved him repeatedly.

Again, I lost it.

I just wasn't prepared to say goodbye then. I mean, they were putting my one-year-old son under for AN HOUR, and it was like saying goodbye forever. Seriously. I hate to be all dramatic, but all those ifs start plaguing your brain. All I could think was what if? what if? what if?

We made it to the waiting area, where we could follow Baby B according to an identification board that showed on a big flat screen alerting us to where he was. We had breakfast to pass the time, and I checked the board obsessively to finally see B's number change to green, and then seconds later they called us to visit him in recovery.

He was out of it. And fussy. I nursed him almost immediately. He smelled like that nasty anesthesia gas, but it didn't really matter. He was safe and happy to be rocking in my arms. We left recovery in a little under an hour, and Baby B happily took his gas mask home as a souvenir and held it in the car the entire way home.

He peed like a champ thanks to all those IV fluids, ate lots of delicious bland foods, and appears to be back to his old, Baby B self. Still pretty stinkin' cute.

Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes. We really appreciated them!

Busy Babblers

First of all, let me thank you for the kind responses in regard to the jeans debacle. Hopefully, I can give some of your suggestions a try. I will certainly let you know what I find. And, I can't believe how many of you are tall! Not that I imagine you short or anything, but I am usually left to be the long-legged sista by my lonesome.

Anyhoooo...

So much is going on around the Babbling Household it's insane. I just downloaded 127 pictures taken since the weekend if that gives you any idea of the chaos buy-ness around here.

Like, for instance, we had an impromptu cookout with my sisters on Friday night. Totally spur of the moment and totally wonderful. No pressure, just burgers on the grill, Kraft mac-n-cheese, corn on the cob, and ice cream with sprinkles for dessert. The only probably is that we don't have an ideal spot for such a get-together. We're deck-less, and our backyard is occupied by a rather large breed of mutt who tends to poop everywhere. Even on the driveway (grrrrr). We could've eaten inside, but it was a gorgeous night and the indoors would have really detracted from the summer ambiance we were going for - except, I guess, we really weren't going ambiance as much as we were going for a place where everyone could eat together and not be spread uncomfortably across two rooms. Our house is perfect for us, but not so much for entertaining.

Following dinner, Soph and Baby B took a baby pool bubble bath and it was simply wonderful. Both kiddos enjoyed it and I took about a bazillion pictures of them. Mainly for blackmail purposes when they're about eighteen. Or perhaps for their wedding slide shows ;)

On Saturday morning there was a huge flea market hosted by the local Catholic diocese, so Chels and I spent an hour or so browsing junk. It was great fun, and we both came home with several treasures, spending less than $4 a piece. Can't beat it. Baby B and I then hit up some of my fav thrift stores, where I scored a new-to-us Fisher Price Rock, Ride, and Roll for - drumroll, please - SIX DOLLARS! I was so excited, I about peed my pants right there in the middle of the Goodwill checkout line. Everything in the store was 50% off.

Once Upon a Child is a great used children's clothing store in our area, and I hit them up seasonally to stock Baby B's wardrobe with a variety of baby wardrobe staples. The yellow pants were brand new from Old Navy, and are so stinkin' cute that I just had to take a pic of him in them. I had to roll the waist down because I actually bought them for fall, but couldn't stand to wait to put them on him. Plus, it was a chilly, rainy day here that I thought totally warranted fuzzy jammy pants to be worn all day. He wore them right up until his daddy let him play/splash/fall into a mud puddle while he was grilling our dinner. To further signify him as the world's funnest dad, they spent a moment together in the ginormous Caterpillar parked directly in front of our house. Are they not the cutest?

Since I have another kindergarten in-service tomorrow, I've gotsta be peacin' out yo. (Please see picture below and do not judge my fly-away hair do(n't) or my stellar(en't) outfit. Ahem.)

PS. Best wishes to two fellow blog mommies who are due with Hudson and Caleb any time - as a matter of fact, both could already be born! Good luck Sarah & Natalie!

Mighty Monday!

I might be too tired to post a Mighty Monday today.

You might have to come back next week when I resume Mighty Monday play.

Until then, bare with me as I get back into the swing of all things Kindergarten. Completed three hours of testing today. Three more tomorrow and Wednesday. Eeeh.

But, the bonus is that I'll get a class list so that I can take a Sharpie to all those blank name plates and cubby tags I've been dying to get my handwriting on.

Pics of our weekend and Sweet Precious to come...

Pair #26

I have a lot of trouble finding jeans that I like. I'm borderline 5'10" tall, with long legs, so finding a style that compliments my glamazon stature and legs is difficult. I'm partial to Gap Long and Leans, but I find that even those give me trouble. Fresh out of the dryer, the waist fits perfect, but the length is a little shy of my heels and I hate that. An hour later, they've stretched out at the waist, leaving me with saggy-butt syndrome and only then, when I've literally yanked them up dozens of times by the belt loops, are they the length that I want. I can't win.

Yesterday, I happened upon the site Zafu, which claims to match you to your perfect pair(s) of jeans after filling out a short questionnaire detailing your body and fit. So, I gave it a whirl, clicking through the survey, and eventually ending up with 29 jean matches.

Not surprisingly, some were pricey, some I could buy at the mall, some were specialty, the Gap Long and Leans were on the list, along with some brands I'd never heard of, but would certainly be willing to locate and purchase if the fit is perfect. The washes seemed consistent with what I usually buy, along with the boot-cut style that I have worn, like, forever. Like since a boy in high school commented that I looked like I was waiting for a flood. Anyway.

And then there was Pair #26.

I gasped, choked a little on my coffee, and cocked my head to one side making sure that this pair of jeans was actually what I thought it was.

Oh, yes, they were. Plain as day.

Mom Jeans.

A nice, crisp pair of St. John's Bay, high-waisted, tapered leg Mom Jeans.

For real, Zafu!? I told you that I was between the ages of 26-30 and you add a pair of Mom Jeans to the list?

Um, so yeah, I'm slightly offended. And I don't know if I actually can trust this site anymore.

Happy to be a mom? Yes. Happy to be matched with pair of Mom Jeans? No.