It’s time to DANCE

On Tuesday I unlatched the car seats, vacuumed out a metric ton of goldfish and sand from my minivan seats, and piled three friends into the car for a trip to see Ellen.

First we stopped at the Grove, where we saw A.C. Slater.

We had a giant lunch at Wood Ranch, and took full advantage of half-price wine Tuesdays.

Then we headed to the show, which apparently was being taped on the surface of the sun. We had to stand outside for about four minutes, and you have never heard such whining from a group of women before. We were sweating, people, and we were pissed.

We got in, and seated in the generously air-conditioned studio. See that blurry figure toward the back? That’s me on my television debut. Hi, Mom!

Perhaps you know that everyone dances in the audience? I love Ellen, but I don’t dance in public. And I didn’t have nearly enough of that half-price wine to have stopped caring. Still, peer pressure and all, I danced, and I didn’t die from humiliation, or spontaneously combust, so hooray!

It was totally worth the tag-team babysitting situation I had to work out, and driving into LA, which I normally hate. Driving with people who can buckle their own seat belts and carry on a conversation is totally enjoyable. Who knew?

Oh, and we won a year of free Tide, so even my husband thought it was well worth it!

We have walking!

This is a long-awaited milestone here.

Untitled from Megan S on Vimeo.

Even though my doctor seemed entirely unworried about the lack of walking from our darling little Bubette, we had started to get a bit anxious. She hasn't completely abandoned crawling, or really even abandoned it at all, since it's much more efficient, but I'm staring to see a very faint light at the end of this tunnel.

Quick!

These days I can't say enough about audio books for my kid. Hurry, because right now the Rip-Roaring Aventures DisneyPixar collection featuring Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Cars is on clearance at Amazon for $6, AND is Prime eligible.

I can tell you from experience that some audio books are real duds, but this one is great, with voices and sounds effects. AND, each story is about twenty minutes long. Sometimes, I get a full hour of Bub sitting and "reading" with these books.

Go!

(I get nothing if you purchase these books. Amazon doesn't even allow affiliates in California, so there.)

Edited to add: It appears the Thomas and Friends collection is also priced to sell at $6.40. I can't speak to this one personally, but the reviews are mostly positive.

Four. Just as hard as three. Unfortunately.

There's been a lot of talk in my little corner of the internet lately about three being difficult, but if someone could chime in and tell me that yes, four was just as difficult for them, if not more so, I would really appreciate it.

This kid. He's so damn charming when he wants to be. He's the kid who makes me so glad that my parents buy us a Disneyland pass every year because he's just so happy to be there. He's all caps and exclamation points. He's a happy kid and when you're fully engaged with him, he's awesome. He adjusted well to school and made friends easily. He knows everyone's name, even the kids who aren't in his class. He approaches kids at the park, "Are you my friend?" and then goes zooming off with them.

But, he's also pushing every button I have, and then some.

I have tried/am trying anything. He's mostly impervious to punishment. Taking away TV privileges works, but he will then ask every minute or so if he can watch a show. Even if I've told him, endlessly, that he can't watch a show until... whenever I've decided that will be. I stop him, get down on his level, and ask him when he can watch a show. And he'll tell me! But then, minutes later, the same thing all over again. Which, okay. He's four and has the attention span of a gnat. Okay.

But, he's so contrary. I play into this: I bet I can beat you up the stairs into the bathroom! I bet you can't pick up all of your toys before I count to twenty. Thanks to Maureen for that particular bit of advice. Still, his first response to pretty much every request is, simply, no. Or, rather NO! Or, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I am a rule-follower, and am physically uncomfortable when other people break rules, so this pushes me to my very limits.

Ask Moxie recommends Your Four Year Old: Wild and Wonderful in a post hilariously titled: Why do 4-year-olds suck so much? I've already put this on my list at the library, fingers crossed that the other poor soul who checked it out returns it quickly.

I'm trying a technique that probably has a name, but we'll just call it "Do Anything You Can to Keep From Screaming or Otherwise Flipping Out." This is harder than it seems. Screaming, shockingly, does not spur this kid into action. Instead, his brain reads this as "Do whatever you were doing, but do it more." So, I don't react. I ask again, nicely. When he's mouthy, I either ask him to try again, or just stop and stare at him until he rephrases his previous statement. At the end of the day, I'm at the end of a very long rope and it's all I can do to hold it together through his shower and bed time. Incidentally, this is also the part of the day where he seems to go completely deaf. More than once, I have hauled him, soaking wet, out of the tub when he doesn't respond to my request to turn off the water before he floods the bathroom.

Someday he'll be bigger than me, and before then I'll tire of dragging him out of the tub, or into his room for naptime or out of school. Oh, yes. When I pick him up from school he does not listen to me until his teacher, who he's known for three weeks, tells him to listen. Those moments are a bit of a blow to my ego.

So, advice? Or, should I just trade my Twitter habit for hard liquor?

From Pinning to Doing

Pinterest has several different effects on me.

1. It makes me hungry.

2. It makes me wish I had an ounce of crafting ability in my body.

3. It makes me want to buy a sewing machine, which would be ill-advised. (See above.)

4. It makes me want to throw out everything in my closet and fill it back up with pretties from ModCloth.

I'm not a prolific pinner, but I did spend a fair bit of time creating my Playroom Makeover board, and, as a result, the playroom is currently being made-over. I don't even know who I am anymore.

Mostly though, I just pin things and forget about them. Not anymore! I'm flipping through my boards, finding some of the several things I just HAD! TO! HAVE/MAKE/EAT! and following through.

Here are this week's projects:

The Ikea Spice Rack Bookshelves found all over the internet. I have already purchased the bookshelves, painted them and assembled them. They're now in Bubette's closet waiting for the inclination to actually hang them to strike.

Source: ohdeedoh.com via Megan (Mama Bub) on Pinterest

Sweet and Salty Roasted Chickpeas, chosen because they seem easy, but also probably delicious.

Source: cupcakeproject.com via Megan (Mama Bub) on Pinterest

Cinnabon Clones. I don't really have a reason for these. We're, uh, having people over this weekend? I mean we are, but they're coming for dinner and would probably find this to be an odd dessert. These also don't seem all that difficult, even without a bread machine, which I don't have. I love The Pioneer Woman cinnamon roll recipe, but it makes seven RIDICULOUS pans of cinnamon rolls. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but seven pans is a bit much, even for this girl.

Source: allrecipes.com via Megan (Mama Bub) on Pinterest

Are you on Pinterest? Are you following me? Do you follow through with the things that you pin? Would you like to teach me to sew?

A Day in the Life

Yesterday

5:15 Bub is awake,  in our room and loud

5:30 My alarm goes off. Shower. Grumble about duct taping Bub to his bed.

6:00 Husband is awake. Bub is even louder. I let him watch Clifford to buy myself enough time to dry my hair.

6:15 Bubette is awake due to aforementioned loud brother. When I started setting my alarm to get up before everyone, I imagined some peace in the morning. Instead, everyone went and adjusted their schedules accordingly.

6:45 Husband leaves. I really want a donut.

7:00 Come downstairs and discover a J.Crew package has arrived in the night. Or, rather, that the husband just brought it in from a late afternoon delivery yesterday. I kind of like the idea of a J.Crew Santa, though. It's my Whoorl pants, and they fit, which is lucky since I bought them in three colors. I swap my jeans for the blue ones.

7:10 Breakfast.

7:30 We should be leaving for school now, but somehow I lose track of the next 30 minutes, and...

8:00 Leave for school. We'll still get there in time, but I usually like to get there a little early to let Bub play.

8:25 Drop Bub at school

8:35 Target. There's already a line of people returning their Missoni haul and I dig through one of the return carts and come up with the ballet flats I wanted in my size. Whee! Shop for a crappy day present.

9:30 Bubette's first music class, and our first mommy and me class. I choose not to tell you how many of these classes Bub was in by this age. Ah, to be the first born.

10:15 Drive to my parent's storage unit, assuming (foreshadowing!) that someone will be there. (It's in a warehouse, not like a Public Storage that I can access myself.)

10:45 Discover that I assumed wrong. I will live with a car full of boxes another day.

10:45 - 11:15 Drive back towards the vicinity of preschool. Grumble a lot. Yell at stupid drivers to pass along my great mood.

11:15 - 12. Pick up pictures of landscaping for HOA. Walk aimlessly through CVS. Get a donut.

12:00 Pick up Bub. Drive home, chattering loudly at both children to keep them awake.

12:30 Lunch for Bubette.

1:00 Nap attempt #1 for Bubette.

1:15 Nap attempt #2

1:30 Put Bub down for nap. Since he's been up for 5:15, there's only minimal objection.

1:45 Last and final nap attempt for Bubette. I settle into the rocking chair and she tosses her paci and blankie across the room. And laughs. So, we're not rocking. Back into bed she goes with every paci in the room, her blankie and books. Cross fingers.

2:00 It would appear she's asleep!

2:00 - 3:30 Write Style Lush post, watch Flipping Out and Parenthood, wonder what Haddie's done to her hair, eat various Trader Joe's snacks.

3:30 Bub is up and grumpy.

4:00 Bubette wakes up

4:00 - 4:15 Dash around kitchen in a mad attempt to make it look like I've done something today. Straighten up toys, load dishwasher, start a load of laundry.

4:30 Pile everyone in the playroom and force them to play. Bub still grumpy. Attempt playroom toy organization while children are present. I think I may need another donut.

5:00 - 6:00 Husband home. Dinner, dishes.

6:00 - 6:30 Entertain children. This is mostly my husband's job at this point.

6:40 Bath for Bubette.

7:00 Shower for Bub. Husband puts Bubette to bed.

7:15 Husband starts the complicated ritual of convincing Bub to sleep. I leave for Bunco.

7:30 - 9:45 Bunco. I lose. I always lose.

10:00 Home. Husband and I watch  Big Brother finale. Team Rachel!

11:15 Sleeeep. (Truth: I fell asleep just after the jury vote and my husband had to wake me up to see Rachel win.)

Some things

Last week I returned a giant pile of library books that were criminally late. Rather than do what I really, really wanted to do, which was to dump them in the return outside the library and run, I marched them up and returned them in person, so that I could pay my fine right then and there. This, friends, shows remarkable personal growth in the area of taking care of business. Also, I really wanted some more books. My fine was huge. Huuuuuge. Embarassingly huge, but I paid it, and then let Bub pick out a giant pile of books to take home. I let myself feel good about supporting the library system with my overdue fees and went home and wrote the new due date on the calendar in bright red pen.

Today I get an email that this is library fine amnesty week. Do you think that's a real thing, or something the county made up to get all of their books back? If only I had been one week more lazy!

***

Preschool is going well. They get homework this year, which is optional, but not for my kid. I may not be employed anymore, son, but you're living in a two teacher household. You're doomed. I really like his teacher and am so happy we decided to stick with the same preschool. However! It's in Old Town and we live in New Town and so it's a bit of a drive. Last year, it was two minutes, door to door. This year, it's more like 25, so I feel compelled to stay in the area rather than driving nearly two hours round trip just to come home and watch Rachel Zoe and do laundry. I mean, it's been a week, so we haven't had a hard time keeping busy, but I imagine this is going to get old quickly. Not to mention Bubette doesn't take a morning nap anymore, I don't have that glorious morning quiet to look forward to if I do come home. My life. It's hard.

***

I've started looking for a job. A little job. One that I can do from home on a very part time basis, but one that pays actual money. The original plan was for me to stay home with Bub for a year. Four years later, here I am! I think the new goal is for me to stay home until Bubette goes to school, which is four years away, but we probably need some sort of additional income before then. So, I'm just putting this out in the universe as I Google my way to contributing something to this family. Well, something other than library debt.

First Day

Yesterday was Bub's first day of school and it was a complete non-event. This is his second year at this preschool, although technically this class is Pre-K, thank you very much. He went to camp at his school for two days a week all summer. He had an entire week off between the end of camp-school and the beginning of school-school. I believe the only difference is the lack of swim days.

Anyway.

As we were racing out the door, it occurred to me that I should probably attempt some sort of first day of school picture. (He picked his own lunch box and backpack this year. I kind of loathe things with licensed characters all over them, but this isn't a battle I'm willing to fight. Cars lunchbox and Super Mario backpack it is!)

I was determined to make the most of this first day of school. Last year, the parents all hung out in the classroom until we were ushered from the room. I was looking forward to that, because I don't really know what he does at school for three and a half hours, so those fifteen minutes were a little window into his life outside of us. This year, I walk into his classroom and not a single parent remains. A few kids are at the Lego table, a few doing puzzles, and within seconds Bub has abandoned me to join his friends. His teacher introduces herself and Bubette and I just... leave.

We walked to Starbucks where I had my first (and last - holy grossness) pumpkin spiced latte, iced (see above nine frillion degrees.) I don't know, it just seemed like it should have been a bigger deal, with some sort of fanfare. I need a little more hip-hip-hooray on the first day of school.

(Hey, the next first day of school is Kindergarten. Which, oddly, is a shorter day than preschool, but more days and is an actual, real school with standards and grades and credentialed teachers. I might be getting a bit ahead of myself here.)

Things you should read. Now

On Tuesday night I had dinner with a group of friends that have formed a covert birthday club. None of us is exactly sure how it happened, only that a dinner to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday a year and a half ago has turned into almost monthly dinners and talk of a weekend getaway.

Whenever I get home from a girl's night like that, I can almost bet that everyone will be asleep, the house dark. Tuesday night was no different, so I sat on the floor of the closet, thumbing through my Reader, both too lazy to get into pajamas and too wired to think of sleeping just yet.

I saved a few things that I read, desperate to comment, but not motivated enough to bother commenting from my phone or head downstairs to a real keyboard.

If you haven't read these pieces this week, I think you should.

Kristen, from Motherhood Uncensored, reading her piece from the Voices of the Year Keynote at BlogHer. She cried, I cried, it's entirely possible that you'll cry too. Unless you're made of stone.

Sleepers, by Leah at A Girl and a Boy. Hoo boy do I have some things to say about sleeping in.

She's Like the Wind, by Jonniker. I probably shouldn't have laughed out loud reading a post-hurricane post.

Thirty-Three Weeks, by Rebecca at Girl's Gone Child. I can't get enough of the weekly pregnant-with-twins updates. At the bottom of the post you can see links to the previous weeks.