Listy Listerson

Ok, so if you couldn’t tell by the title, I’m feeling listy.  Let’s get started.

1. So after a long week (and it’s not even over yet) of Christmas shopping, I am almost finished.  Personally, I’m a mall Christmas shopper.  I hate ordering online.  Which is ridiculous, because I do an elaborate email Christmas list with links and everything.  Anyway, so this year I bought a little notebook and wrote down everyone I need to buy for (all 16 of them), the gifts I have already purchased (as well as their prices – gotta stick to the budget), and ideas for additional gifts to purchase etc.  Then each day I hit the mall, I made a list of the stores I was going to hit (specifically choosing the stores in a specific area of the mall) and what I planned to buy, etc. and then planned what entrance I would use based on what stores I hit that day.  Ok.  So now that I’ve written all of this down I’m wondering if you think we hid the pickle ornament up my butt this year.  What a super-anal-type A-dork I am.  As dorky as it sounds, it seriously saves in toddler meltdowns (especially when I remember to pack snacks and different toys) and wandering aimlessly with that deer in headlights look on my face.  Which has been known to happen to me often during the holiday season.  Shopping-high OD.  Also in my defense, I only have the hours of 10-12 to work with for mall shopping… so I really need to have my crap together.  No time for browsing.
2. Jack.  This kid continues to amaze me with his ridiculous ways.  He is constantly making me laugh.  Like when he leans into the floor lamp and touches his ear to it and says, “EOo?” (hello), or when he is eating and leans his head down on the table and says, “EOo?”  I also am enjoying his random gargling – milk, water, juice or spit.  The kid loves to gargle.  And spit.  Last night I had to turn around to keep from laughing, while Jack was in a time-out, completely hysterical, sneaking his foot off of the ottoman (where we do time-outs) and onto the floor (like we couldn’t see him and the hysterics were that distracting that we wouldn’t notice him sneaking off) then when I picked him up off of the ottoman, he started laughing.  Oh, the drama.  Then of course it’s the Christmas tree ornament stealing… which deserves it’s own number.
3. So I pretty much decorated the top half of the tree.  With the exception of a few unbreakable ornaments within Jack’s reach and a few traditional glass balls on the inside of the tree (way out of his reach inside the tree).  Well, that little turkey has zero interest in the unbreakables… well, that’s not entirely true.  He’ll gaze at them and then wiggle his way into the tree, army crawl under the tree or somehow get behind the tree (climb the branches?  crawl under and wiggle his way standing up back there… who knows!  He’s so quick that I turn around and look back and all I see are his little feet back behind the tree) to get to those ornaments.  Then once he’s got one he yells out, “UH-OH!”  Hmmm…. I wonder if Jack is getting into trouble.  Which reminds me of a funny story…
4. When my brother and his family were still here we had the tree up but it wasn’t decorated.  So it wasn’t very interesting to Jack at the time.  Occasionally he’d mess around with it, but for the most part he ignored it.  Well, one night we were doing something and my sister-in-law and I were discussing something and my nephew Noel runs up to us, hollering out, “UH-OH, trouble, TROUBLE!”  All the while pointing to the tree… where Jack was army crawling under the tree.  haha!  It was too funny.

Ok.  I better run for now… I’ve got a bazillion things to do including wrapping all 789 presents (haven’t even started yet) and ordering a few things online… yeah, I know.

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I am Thankful

My brother and his family came for Thanksgiving this year.  My sister-in-law and I made Thanksgiving dinner (team effort!  woo hoo!) and I have to say, it was amazing.  I’m awfully proud of us.  It was a great week/weekend… and we miss them already.  Here’s a few pictures of our holiday together.  Hope you all had as good of one as we did!  I’ll update later this week on what else has been going on around here.

           

           

           

           

           

           

                          

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And the Bad Mother of the Year Award Goes to…

I’m having a crappy week.  I am officially a contender for the Bad Mom of the Year Award.  Earlier in the week, Jack and I were upstairs doing laundry.  I don’t have a gate at the top of the stairs.  I’m not sure why, because we have probably 10 of them around here… I suppose it hasn’t been a priority because he has been so good about staying away from the stairs and is pretty much in the same room as I am, so I can keep a close eye on him. 

So I’m getting off track here.  I’m sure you know where this is going.  He was playing with the receiver of our corded phone and not paying attention to what he was doing or where he was going and got a little close to the stairs and I pictured him falling in my head, so I lunged toward him.  As he saw me do this he turned to run away from me and went right down the stairs.  We have carpeted stairs (thank goodness… although I’ve cussed them several times for being the dog hair haven that they are) and they turn 90 degrees half way down (another thank goodness).  So he didn’t fall too far and didn’t seem too upset by it at all.  In fact he cried for less than 30 seconds then ran away from me.  I was a little shook up at the time but was distracted by bath-time (where I seriously inspected his arms/legs/head – well pretty much everywhere for any bruises or possible issues).  He was fine.  And so was I, until about 9pm.  I just couldn’t get it out of my head.  Seeing him falling down those stairs and not being fast enough to stop him.  I was hysterical.  And still get a little weepy thinking about it now.

So today I pulled the dumbest move.  As we were leaving the park I handed Jack my keys to stop a tantrum.  I put him in his seat, heard the doors lock and said, “uuh ohh.”  Then I wiped his hands off and grabbed the keys and threw them in the front seat and shut his door.  And tried to open my door.  But it was locked.  And the car had been sitting in the sun for about an hour.  And it was 80 degrees out.  Yes, for some un-Godly reason it is 80 degrees today.  Yeah, so I locked my kid in the hot car.  And FREAKED OUT.  Thank goodness my neighbor (who, bless her heart is almost five months pregnant and wanted to leave in the first place because she had to pee) was pulling out of the park and I managed to catch her before she left.  While I was sobbing and freaking out and sweating all over the place, she called the fire department and calmed me down and made silly faces at Jack.  All the while, Jack is laughing… yes, laughing in his car-seat.  Three minutes later sirens, fire-truck, and four burly men arrived.  About five minutes after that the doors were unlocked, and my sweaty little man was back in my arms.  And yet again, I was sobbing.  While he stared off in awe at the fire-truck.

So I realize he wasn’t really traumatized by these things, but I sure as hell was.  Geez, I can only imagine how bad people feel when their kids actually break bones or need stitches.  So I’m having a crappy week.  On a lighter note, Heather felt so bad that I was so upset that she brought me over a little care package which included a big bag of caramel corn from Garrett’s in Chicago, M&M’s, and a bottle of wine.  Wasn’t that sweet?  Yeah, so I’ve managed to eat ALL of the popcorn and most of the M&M’s and am pretty sure I’m going to puke.  And NO I’m not pregnant.

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The Calm Before the Storm

I have been a little preoccupied lately, in case you haven’t noticed my absence.  E and I went to Charleston last weekend (not last weekend as in yesterday, but the weekend following Halloween) for a long relaxing baby-free weekend.  And it was fantastical. 

We arrived Thursday evening and had a yummy dinner (although it’s not really standing out in my mind right now, for some reason) at Mercato.  After dinner we took a long walk around town and hung out on a bench in a park and talked for a while.  Then we headed over to Kilwin’s for my second dessert of the night, a caramel covered rice crispy treat drizzled in chocolate.  Very nice. 

Friday E had some meetings (the actual reason we made the trip in the first place) so he had booked a massage and facial for me because he was afraid I would get bored (can you believe that??  Seriously, people, BORED in Charleston!).  So I woke up late a half an hour later than normal, ate breakfast without having to fix it for someone else before hand, went to the hotel’s gym (I know, the gym on vacation… but how can I pass up the opportunity to go without worrying about setting up a babysitter), then took a jog walk through town, then enjoyed my facial and massage, and followed it all up with a nice long nap.  What a great day.  That night we had dinner at Hank’s.  De-lish.  That’s all I have to say about that meal.  Because I had scallops.  My favorite food in the world.  Followed by red velvet cake.  Another long walk.  And yet another treat from Kilwin’s.  Seriously.

Saturday E had more meetings then had some work to do, so I went to the gym (to work off that second dessert) and did a little shopping on King Street.  That morning when I called to check in on Jack, my father-in-law told me that my sister-in-law was also in Charleston.  I thought about calling her, but figured I’d run into her.  Can you believe me?  Seriously, it’s not like Charleston is a small town.  Well, guess who I ran into on King Street?  haha!  Great shoppers think alike.

Saturday night we headed over to SNOB for dinner.  Which was amazing.  I highly recommend.  Sunday we had breakfast over at the Charleston Place.  Yet another fantastic meal.  I completely over indulged myself with the caramel brioche.  Oh my goodness I am drooling just thinking about it. 

It was a great weekend… followed by a great week.  My mom came to town on Monday after we got home.  We had a great week shopping, going out for lunch, doing yoga, and hanging out with the Jackster.  It was so good to see her and I’m already suffering from withdrawal.  The last week and a half has been so relaxing and fun… I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is next week!!  Aaahhahaha!!  And I haven’t even started thinking about it.  And I’m hosting this year!  Oh my.

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Happy Halloween… AARrr!

Here’s my little pirate!  haha!  He was hilarious… even got him to say AARrrr!  We did the neighborhood parade and a little trick-or-treating.  This is at the start of the parade.  As all of the kids gathered in costume, Jack was completely in awe.  He must have stared at a girl with a witch mask for 10 minutes… which made picture taking a breeze for me.  I need to remember that for our next photo session.

Somehow someone made him crack a little smile amidst his staring.

Grandpa Z joined us for the festivities while Grandma Z was at a dance class.  Then Grandma came over later to watch Jack flail around, high on Halloween.  Here’s a cute one of Grandpa and Jack.  He was a big help.  Surprisingly, I needed the third set of hands (besides E and myself), with the stroller and the camera and picture-taking and Jack wandering off toward random houses and lawn displays.   That and I was so busy stuffing my face with candy prior to, and following the parade that I was useless in handing out candy to the neighbors.

Jack walked the entire parade (which was quite long… several blocks) and at one point insisted on “helping” pull/push Jayden’s wagon.  Too cute.

E has been working his butt off lately.  Two days this week he came home several hours after I went to bed and went back in to work at least two hours before I woke up.  But he still managed to make it home in time for the parade.  What a great Daddy.

This one is a little fuzzy, but I love the look on his face.  Hope you all had a great Halloween!

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