Fashion Mags and I have different definitions

I am not fashionable.

My look is mostly Gap. Maybe some REI thrown in there. On a rare occasion maybe even some Express. Usually with and eau du baby.

I still love magazines though. I love flipping through the pages and seeing photos of glamorous women looking like I never ever will. Wearing outfits that cost more than my car.

It is really funny because a few really popular magazines have features that discuss getting designer looks for an affordable price. Keyword: affordable.

Instead of a $975 shoe buy the pair that is only $400. While $500 is a great amount of money, I cannot fathom spending $400 on a pair of heels that maybe, I'd wear twice. Let alone $975. I just can't imagine.

Maybe I am old. Maybe I have spend too much time shopping at Target. Maybe I am just unaware, out of touch, or just dim. But I cannot see spending 3x my car payment on shoes.

The same goes for strollers. I have my double stroller that I nearly choked buying at a cost of $250. I see people with strollers well over $1000. Really. A mortgage payment, in a stroller.

I walk, a lot. My stroller has a ton of miles on it. But $1000? If I suggested that, B would sign me in to get my head examined. If the stroller came with an au pair- then sure, but a device for pushing a child around? Not going to spend that kind of money on that- I just can't!

My mom rocks

In my drugged stupor I am singing it to the Drew Carey Show theme "Cleveland Rocks" clearly pain pills affect my sanity.

annnyway...

she does.

when we got home from the hospital I kind of waved and went to bed. My arm was numb and floppy.

I attempted eating, and puked, I attempted water, and puked.

As miserable as that was, and believe me it was, I did not have to worry about the kids. I did not have to worry about getting them fed, or dressed, or watching out for them I could focus on my aim at the toilet.

To be honest, I have no idea how she does it. She is amazing. She comes in and in some sort of flurry she leaves behind her a trail or organization and cleanliness. It is kind of scary. I have watched her and I am really not sure how she does it. It is like a miracle of some sort.

Tonight, she reorganized my refrigerator, after taking all of the shelves out and cleaning the darn thing out. She is just amazing.

When I was a teenager and a kid she did not seem nearly as awesome, how wrong I was.

Now the crappy parts. I feel like I will never be the great mother she is. I will never be able to go into a room and get it put in order in a heartbeat. I can't organize or clean like that. She is so much nicer than me. I feel like I can never measure up. But, I want to. I wish I could.

Post Surgery Owies

Surgery is not supposed to be fun, I don't think.

Mama's the world over spend years cautioning their kids to not cut themselves, and to sign informed consents for someone to knock you out and cut you open is counter-intuitive.

But again, I did. And again it hurts. I had my wrist put back together yesterday. And am now doing everything one-handed. Typing only with my right hand is slower and bothersome.... but there are a lot more obnoxious things. For example, I can't open my pain pill bottle. Putting a diaper on an uncooperative baby with one hand is like wrestling an angry octopus...I could go on and on. It is not pleasant, hopefully, this will be short lived.

Giveaway Winner!

In other news, I suck. I totally forgot about posting the winner my apologies,

Congratulations to Karen!

I will be emailing her shortly to get her information.

Annoying day to day life

Expedition v. Excursion

ex·pe·di·tion/ˌekspəˈdiSHən/Noun
1. A journey or voyage undertaken by a group of people with a particular purpose, esp. that of exploration, research, or war.

ex·cur·sion/ikˈskərZHən/Noun
1. A short journey or trip, esp. one engaged in as a leisure activity.

This gets me, it really really gets me. Expedition means a bigger trip, excursion means like a day trip- a smaller trip. So then logically, an Excursion should be the smaller car. Expedition means a bigger undertaking, and should therefore be the larger vehicle. But no. They are reversed and it makes me freaking insane. Really, I see one of these cars on the road and I want to yell at Ford.

Early Reading= late blooming??

First and foremost: The fundamental task of early childhood isn't learning to read, or to "get ahead" for school, or to impress the neighbors, or to give the folks something to brag about. Encouraging children to surge ahead beyond their real developmental needs leaves them with some really sludgy clean-up to grapple with later on.

- Marsha Lucus, Phd.

This is key. As a child I was intellectually advanced. I got concepts quickly and became bored to tears.

While I can balance a chemical equation or find the area under a curve with ease I am socially inept.

I have no idea how to relate to people most of the time. When in a group, I like watching people interact and often am struck with an, "ah ha!" moment. As in "ah ha! that is how they do it!"

My book smarts are great, but they only get me so far. I would rather have a kid who is empathetic than able to read Dostoyevsky at age 12.

It is easy to get caught up the the mompetition of life. Moms bragging that their kids are in 5 activities and school or has mastered their third language without accent by age 8 is a hard act to follow. Even harder is realizing an internalizing that your child is a person, not a trophy, that he or she has wants and needs that are every bit as important as an adults.

To be sure, I am not saying that kids activities are bad- just that kids should be kids first and foremost.

So my three year old can't read, but if she sees someone hurt, she'll offer a hug or ice- and I think that is a pretty great skill to have.

A chicken with a neck

As a mother of 4 I do a lot of laundry. I cook a lot of food. I clean more than is reasonable. It is pretty much all the same.

Today, I pulled a chicken out and was getting it ready to stick in the oven. The bag of innards was being stubborn so I turned the chicken around to see if I could push it through any easier than pulling. When I turned it over I saw what I thought was a really floppy wing in the wrong place- like a mutant chicken.

It was the neck. The chicken still its neck.. Its head was gone but the neck and bones and skin were still there. Chickens have a longer neck than I would have expected.

You know that roaring in your ears and the watery mouth that you get before you vomit? Yeah, I got that. I had to sit. The next dilemma: what to do with my headless (but not neckless chicken)?

Further butchering seemed to be unnecessary. So I plopped the bird neck tucked under it, into the pan, seasoned it, and roasted it.

That was not before I called about 10 people to tell them about the chicken with a neck. This was the most exciting thing to happen in my life in a few weeks. Yep- a chicken. With a neck. I took a picture. I emailed it to my mom (wow, my life is really dull- huh) I emailed my mother a photo of a chicken with its neck. Whats next an apple with leaves?

As I stood at the stove making gravy I realized something- that my suburban housewife bliss- is really really fucking boring and clearly, I need to get out more.


Vegetarians Beware- photo below (a crappy camera phone photo)

bite your tongue- or lip

It is so annoying to bite your tongue or lip. It hurts, brings tears to my eyes and generally just frustrates me.

What is worse is then that area is just swollen enough to stick out more and get bit even more, making the swelling worse thus perpetuating the cycle, more and more and more. Leading to more and more frustration.

It seems like it will never heal.

Mrs. Cellophane

It is hard. It is hard to be the person that makes sure everything gets done. But is not noticed. If I do not do something, it is obvious. Pile of dishes in the sink? No clean clothes? Out of toilet paper?

When I do my job properly, no one sees, I am to be the worker bee running around making life livable doing the things that no one else thinks of.

There are a lot of things that I do everyday that go unnoticed.

Sometimes (all the time) it bothers me that I am essentially invisible. No one will give me a raise or recognition for ironing clothes.

A lot of my friends say that I should look for joy in my role. Joy is hard to find matching socks. Joy is hard to find picking up the 100th dirty shirt (that really wasn't dirty but someone tossed on the floor after trying and is now covered with cat hair).

It makes me think of my mom. Our house was spotless, and she made it seem effortless. Its not. It is a crap load of work. My mom may have been Mrs. Cellophane when I was a kid, but now I would like to thank her for all of the work she did behind the scenes to make the house run. So thank you Mom. I have no idea how you did it so well.

Things fall into place

I do not like most breakfast food. I just don't.

That is not to say that I do not eat breakfast. Recently, I found out why I may avoid breakfast foods.

It has come to our attention that when Stinky eats gluten he gets a plaque on his scalp, Peas has issues when she eats gluten too.

We took a gluten free diet for a spin and had interesting results. Peas screamed a lot less and Stinky's head cleared up among other things.

Then I ate gluteny goodness at the kids birthday party. My tummy hurt so so bad for a few days.

At the next appointment at the doc we were chatting and it came up that I did not like breakfast foods...she had a revelation. I was self limiting foods that my body had a hard time digesting. I don't like milk either and I have a hard time handling that.

This led to an important change in thinking for me. When my kids "don't like" something I try and convince them to eat it, instead of respecting their bodies. Maybe they are self limiting also? Something to consider.

Mosquito Bites and Skinned Knees

My kids are covered in mosquito bites and skinned knees.

It is summer- bruises, scabs and mosquito bites are par for the course here.

When I had Pixie at the doctor he laughed at her knees both with scabs and bruises dotting her legs. He said clearly she was an active girl. She is. She thinks the TV is a climbing wall.

We have been through a box of band-aids this summer. Some of them were even necessary (my children have some sort of weird fascination with them)

All of the kids have hair three shades lighter than normal and tan lines marking where their bathing suits sit.

They are always a little dirty as most of the time is spent outside playing something building a fort or a fairy bower.

Summer can be so much fun!

baby snuggles

Pixie is not so much a baby anymore- she is a toddler. Independent explorer. But in the morning she still will climb on my lap for snuggles.

I will never get tired of her snuggles.

Her eyes are an amazing gray blue that sparkle with love and life.

She has lost the new baby smell but has her own scent that I love to just drink in as I kiss her forehead.

A Summer Giveway For Chicago Area Readers

Yeah I know it has been a long time since I have hosted a giveaway. I am so sorry- darn life getting busy!

Anyway- I am thrilled to announce a that Dealavue is sponsoring this giveaway.

Dealavue is similar to Groupon in that they offer deals- but they feature a ton of deals daily so you are sure to find something you like. Heck in this economy EVERYONE is trying to do more with less.

From family activities to date nights and beauty treatments- there is something for everyone.

So I am thrilled to offer a reader a $25 dollar voucher to use towards a purchase on this site.

And- any reader who just can't wait to see if they'll win use the code "FUN" to get $5 off!

To enter:

1- Comment
2- Like Making If Fun on Facebook
3- Tweet this
4- Mention it on Facebook
5- Follow me- Almostsinglemom on twitter.

Please leave a separate comment for each action.


You have 1 week. The contest will end at 11:59 pm central time on 8/10/2011. I will pick a winner randomly on 8/11/2011. I will announce the winner via my blog, twitter and email. So make sure you have an email associated with your profile - or leave it for me in a comment/email it to me @ almostsinglemom@makingitfun.net

Good Luck!

Things they should teach in school

I am a reasonably intelligent person. I can read. I can write. My knowledge of multi-variable calculus is impressive. I can balance chemical equations with the best of them, but I cannot jump my car.

I have no idea why this is but my kids love to turn on the lights by their seats in my sexy minivan. I do not always notice this- I only notice it when it is night-time.

Anyhow.

It happened. Then the next day I did not drive. Which meant my car sat with a light on for about 48 hours. Of course, the battery died. When I needed to start my car there was not even the clicking noise of the engine trying to turn over. It was just that dead.

My knowledge of cars is limited. I can drive manual. I can put gas in it and that is about it. However, I had a battery pack to jump the car. B bought it for me years ago, and I teased him horribly for it (sorry).

I figured I would be able to figure it out- how hard could it be?

Hard.

The trunk release is not like the hood release- it does not just open. There is another step. A lever to push or pull or twist to get the hood to open all of the way. Two problems: there are no instructions for it, and it is positioned far back so people with freakishly small hands cannot reach it without getting stuck. I actually considered calling 911 to get me unstuck- until I was able to wiggle my hand out skinning my knuckles.

Eventually, I got it. Putting the clippy thingys (technical term) on the battery was easy. Even I can match colors.

But it didn't work. The horn on the car sure did work though! Somehow the alarm got tripped and good heavens it is loud. I called all of my male friends assuming they would have some idea. No go luck- one of them J's husband did suggest calling a Honda dealer- Genius.

They told me how to disable the alarm but the battery pack was just not powerful enough to start the car. I had to wait to be rescued.

Soon enough my car was started (thank goodness for big SUV alternators).

But really- a 10 minute lesson could have saved my hand and a lot of frustration.

Maybe instead if learning how to take derivatives of crazy functions a few minutes of my time would have been better spent learning how to jump a car.