Resorting to Walmart

Cape May is a resort town. People who "resort" here don't need essential life basics. Like department stores. Or full size grocery stores. Or chain restaurants. Instead, we have hotels. And local overpriced restaurants. And gift shops. 

The nearest neighboring town also does not have any of these life basics because it is in too close proximity to the "resort." 

At least that's the conclusion I've come to. Or since it's still New Jersey it can't have anything NORMAL, I'm not sure which. But that's pretty much what is going on in our neighbor city, Rio Grande.

Rio Grande is a stupid name. There is no river. There is nothing big. It's just a dumpy town with a toll to enter that prides itself on Shoprite (only the most chaotic WORST grocery store ever) and Walmart (not even a Super Walmart!). 

So I "resort" to Walmart. Okay so it has a department store. IF you consider Walmart a department store. It also has a Kmart but the Kmart looks like it's going to collapse if too many pigeons land on the roof. So, unless we want to drive 40 minutes north to REAL stores like Target (don't think I don't do it either), we go to Walmart. 

Our Walmart is appropriately located directly across the street from a skanky trailer park and an equally skanky motel. 

In between the two is a small cemetery. I couldn't make this up.


Back in my holier-than-thou days in Seattle, I would NEVER step foot in a WALMART. #1 - walking into one exposes you to more diseases than your local STD clinic. 

#2 - ever go to the website People of Walmart? It's real. That's REALLY how people dress there. So unless you are really itching to see a man wearing fish nets and purple hot pants, I would avoid it.

Unless you HAVE to go into Walmart (like I do, because I can't justify $50 in gas to go to Target), in that case, I wouldn't recommend making eye contact with anyone. Better to just close your eyes and use your cart to ram your way through the store. 

Personally I like to dress up to go into Walmart. I wear jeans, brush my hair and put on a bra. I know I'm pretty overdressed as far as Walmart standards go, but it's a self-confidence booster when you are the best kept person in an entire store.

I make my kids dress too. I clearly am too strict a parent. My kids are usually the ones that have clothes on and not pajamas. At 1 o'clock in the afternoon. And their faces are clean. And they aren't allowed to run wild in neighboring aisles launching large bouncy balls at old ladies. Okay, so only one of them can walk at this point. But IF he could walk, he wouldn't be. I have outrageous standards. CPS will be after me soon. 

Today Camden got an adorable dinosaur hat in the mail that my mom made for him. It's too small but we wore it anyways. Into Walmart. Which is completely acceptable for a 10 month old to wear a dinosaur hat on any occasion.  But ESPECIALLY in Walmart. He was one of them there. He fit in with the 15 year old boys wearing Angry Birds nordic hats and that one girl with the creepy koala bear hoodie that announced that she "wishes she had a dinosaur hat like that and that she'd wear it EVERYWHERE!"


I know I KNOW, I made eye contact! Shit! Time to quickly dive into the shoe aisle and escape creepy koala girl.

Tell me that isn't the most awesome hat you've ever seen. It even has beady little dinosaur eyes.

Not that I wouldn't totally rock a dinosaur hat as a grown adult. Just not everywhere. Especially in public. Unless I'm drinking. Then I'm totally game. 

I like to play the "check out" game when I'm ready to pay. I usually walk past all the check out lanes at least once, mentally assessing the cashiers. NEVER choose the old men. They are either cranky or creepy. Or the teenage girls. They are too busy texting in the middle of your order. And calling over the hot bagger to "help" her get 3 items into a bag. Ugh, spare me. 

I go for the middle aged women with faces that look like fruit leather snacks. They're quick because they want their smoke break. They don't care if you double coupon because they have 4 grown kids and understand that young parents really do NEED an extra $2 off that pack of fruit snacks. They also almost always have override keys. And they make you proud because they ooze and coo all over your kids and make you truly believe that your kids ARE the cutest things that have ever passed this checkout lane.


Because they are, obviously.

One more pic of the hat, because I just can't get over how cute it is.

Note: there are no pictures of Walmart. I do not take my camera to Walmart. Mainly because I'm pretty sure someone will steal it and sell it for heroine.

The Essential Mommy Equipment List.

I had to steam clean our couch tonight. Couches are gross, especially when you have two dogs and two kids. The dogs lean up against them. The older boy plays on it with his grubby hands/feet/everything. The younger boy chews on the couch, or sucks on the couch, or just plain MOUTHS the couch. Which creates lovely little drool circles all over my cream colored couch. 

I don't know why, but Brad and I thought we were brilliant and bought a cream colored couch. A month before Calen was born. Yeah we're pretty smart. But it was a good deal, it was comfortable, and it was pretty.

For a month.

Baby Calen was a spit-upper. Actually more accurately he was a projectile puker. He had the Exorcist syndrome acid reflux, and spit up from almost every bottle. All over our couch, every time. Luckily we WERE smart enough to buy a microfiber couch, so most everything comes out with a wet paper towel, but it doesn't necessarily make the stain go away completely. And now after three years and two kids, our couch takes a daily beating.

We bought this little beast of an upholstery steam cleaner when we first moved here. It's pretty much the most essential piece of mommy gear I have. The kids puke on it, pull it out and shampoo the cushion (our cushions aren't removable). The dog digs through the trash can outside and eats and entire bag of cocaine and comes flying into the house and leaps onto the couch with muddy paws, pull out the steam cleaner. It's small, it's cheap ($80), and it's HORRIFYING how much shit it gets out of your couch. I usually shampoo the couch every two months just for maintenance. Every time I dump out the dirty water, I'm nauseous at the black color of the water. Ummm is my ass seriously that dirty because I've done nothing to this couch but sit on it for the last two months!!

The #1 most essential piece of mommy equipment. And that glass is NOT full of the newest Green Monster recipe. That's from our couch. Ummm.....EWWW??

So as I'm cleaning my apparently filthy couch tonight, I'm wondering why the hell I haven't ever seen one of these little beauties on a baby registry before. Or why I never thought to put it on my own registry when I was pregnant. Then I started thinking about everything else that SHOULD be on a baby registry but never is. 


I remember when Brad and I found out we were going to be first time parents. We were so excited...we also had no idea what the hell we were doing. We were a few months out from having baby Calen but we wanted to get some baby items. You know, following the In Case of New Baby Disaster Plan. We drove over to Target (back in Seattle when it was only 10 minutes away instead of an hour!), walked into the middle of the baby aisle. And froze. Our jaws dropped, and we stood there, mouths agape, staring at each other and the fifteen brands and styles of bottles, nipples, pacifiers and other items, not having a CLUE where to begin. We bought so much SHIT that we never ever used, but thought that we did because there it is in the baby aisle so it MUST be important. Most of which we ended up giving away within six months of having Calen. New parents are clueless. Some non-new parents are still clueless.


Here is some advice on either creating a baby registry or buying off a registry. Do NOT put clothes on your list. And if you're buying from someone, don't buy (only) clothes. (It's hard to not buy at least one cute adorable clothing item). Mama wants to buy clothes. Mama doesn't want to spend money on boring things. Buy her the boring things. She will be grateful! Also, here are some things that I believe need to be on every mommy's registry, but never is (but SHOULD BE):


1. Compact Steam Cleaner. Seriously. You've never seen so many bodily fluids in your life. You need a quick way to make it disappear forever.

2. Smelly candles/Febreeze spray/Scentsy Warmers. An essential accessory to the above steam cleaner. Bodily fluids smell. Scents make terrible odors quickly go away.

3. Wine. Or hard liquor. She'll need it. AFTER the baby is born. Obviously.

4. Diapers. It was my favorite gift in both showers. That's the lame stuff you hate spending money on! Mamas love buying new outfits. they hate buying diapers. 

5. Gift Certificates to mommy's favorite clothing store. Because she won't/doesn't think of/can't afford to buy her own clothes for the next 18 years. And you don't want to see that same tshirt she's wearing today 18 years from now. Yikes.

6. Gift Certificates to restaurants, or take out joints. Like many first time mommies I thought I would have plenty of energy to handle the baby, keep the house in order and cook dinner every night. Face it. You're going to be ordering delivery 4 nights a week. Pizza at your door in 30 minutes is far more appealing after getting 25 minutes of sleep the night before.

7. A bouncer/Jumperoo/Johnny Jump Up type thing. Also known as an Instant Baby Containment System. This is on many registries. DON'T IGNORE IT. If I need a shower, or to pee BY MYSELF, or to quickly mop up/steam clean whatever bodily fluid is currently on the couch, or five minutes to make an extremely strong drink, plop them in the jumperoo. Let them bounce around completely contained and unsupervised. Move it in front of the tv for longer effect. Seriously best.baby gear.ever.


Mommy-to-be may not agree with some of the items on this list when baby shower time comes around. Buy them anyways...they'll figure out you were brilliant a few weeks/months into motherhood, surrounded by baby poop and only getting 15 minutes of sleep in 6 days.


In other news today, we mixed it up around here. Usually, I make dinner, Brad cleans up dinner and toys, I clean babies and put them in jammies, Brad makes bottle for Cam and reads stories to Calen. Today I told Brad it would be an interesting idea to switch it up and have him bathe the kids, something fun for them and I'll do all the dirty work downstairs. In reality it was a scam so that he would have to deal with the kids in the tub and I could leisurely clean up dinner and the toys. I had a feeling the tubbie time was going to be a BLAST tonight. I wasn't disappointed.


Within 5 minutes of Brad taking the boys upstairs I hear both of them wailing. Usually Calen loves bathtime. But I knew today would be different. He had a Bandaid on his knee from yesterday. He's terrified of Bandaids, even Cars/Spiderman/Toy Story ones. He thinks they're going to kill him if we peel them off or stick them on. So I knew in the bath today that the Bandaid would come off and his little life would be over. Meanwhile, Cam is extremely hit or miss with baths. Some days he loves it and is splashing and laughing. Other days he's screaming and trying to crawl out and wants nothing to do with his bath. Today, both kids couldn't get out of the bath fast enough. I knew Brad was struggling upstairs, but I found myself chuckling to myself as I quietly scrubbed the dinner pans. By MYSELF. One day of him dealing with screaming monsters instead of me certainly won't kill him. Have fun up there Mr. Mom!

Daddy Time = flying around the house in a Tonka Truck bed

Another thing we usually do in the afternoon is have "daddy" time while I make dinner. Brad entertains the kids and has special time with them so that I can actually prepare a meal without 39281 interruptions. Today, Daddy was just full of good ideas. Like plopping our 10 month old in a Tonka dump truck and driving him full speed around the house (with Calen chasing after him). Of course the boys loved it. And I stopped making dinner to take video. Then he built a house out of blocks, put a "damsel in distress" on top and wailed in a girly voice "saaaaaaave me the house is on FIRE!!!". Calen had to drive his big fire truck (see...it's still cars and trucks) up to the house and "shoot" the little water spouts out of the water cannon (fire trucks apparently come fitted with water CANNONS now instead of hoses. My kind of fire truck. Everything is better with CANNONS) at the house. It was a fun game...especially daddy crying like a little girl.

Fireman training

 

Bad Television...

....is so awesome. Brad and I are currently spending our adult time together watching BAD television. And it doesn't get any farther on the BAD scale than Toddlers & Tiaras. 

I'm not sure why we're enjoying watch it, but we're enjoying it. It's kind of like that rollover injury-accident on the side of the road that you drive by. It's brutal, it's graphic and it's horrifying, but you can't stop staring at it because you want to know just WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON and suddenly you total your car right next to them. Pretty much sums up this show. Except we're not operating any heavy machinery while watching. Thank goodness.

I know a lot of moms really enjoy putting their daughters in big glitzy pageants, and that they find the good reasons to do it and spend a thousand dollars on one dress and that it boosts their self esteem, or whatever their reasoning is to get caught up in all that wildness. Sorry to you ladies, but this blog won't be kind to you. Best just close it now and go spray tan your 5 year old before you get insulted.

I think it's super creepy to see a 6 year old wearing fake teeth that when they open their mouths make them look like the movie Aliens aliens hissing at the cameras. And the fake hair so big it has it's own weather system. Oh and the dress that costs more than our annual budget for plane tickets. And of course let's not forget the four coats of spray tan that rivals the local Maaco auto shops.


But it's all for a good cause! It guarantees that your daughter will turn into the youngest/biggest brat diva in the entire room. Maybe even the city, or the county. Because that's what we need more of in this world. Young girls that fully believe that image is everything and looking fake is far more important than being yourself. And they wonder why Snooki is such an icon. You're creating a Snooki army! Yuck yuck yuck!!

I need to stop before I really get nasty and people start putting watermelon bombs in my mailbox.... 

Meanwhile in our NORMAL household, Camden is learning how to walk. He's not ready to let go and actually walk, because he's smart and wants us to do all the work for him. So he hunts us like a cheetah, then when we're not expecting it (usually making some foodstuff in the kitchen), he attacks, pulls himself up on our legs, shoves his head in between our knees, wraps his arms around each leg and WILL NOT LET GO. He's like a spider monkey suspended in a tree. So no matter where we walk, he walks with us. I'm pretty sure he gets immense satisfaction in turning us into large penguins as well, because we sure as hell can't bend our knees and it forces us to waddle around like we're 42 months pregnant.

He also thinks it's hysterical so he is constantly bouncing up and down and laughing. Thus the pic is a little blurry. Also because it was nighttime and indoors and the lighting in my house sucks.sucks.sucks!! And that's the excuse I'm going to continue to use until I get better grasp of my camera.




 

Look I'm walking!!!! Not really I'm cheating so I'm fake walking!!!

A Lesson in Taking Pictures of Kids

I hate spending money on pictures. Especially large amounts of money, which is usually the case when it comes to getting pictures done professionally. I understand that professional photography takes a lot of equipment and editing, but I can't afford to spend outlandish amounts of money every 5 or 6 months when a major holiday or birthday roll around.

So, I spent outlandish amounts of money on my own fancy, expensive DSLR camera. Because of course I'd rather spend hundreds of dollars on MYSELF instead of someone else. And also because while the last two paid professional photo shoots resulted in large framed photos on my wall, they aren't the best pictures I've ever seen. So if I can do even half as good as some studio with my expensive beast of a camera, then I'm saving millions of dollars in the long run, right? RIGHT?

Here's a life lesson for you. Just because you buy a fancy camera that costs more than your couch does NOT mean that suddenly you're an award winning photographer. It may boost your ego carrying around a big heavy camera around your neck that gives you arthritis, but that's pretty much as far as it's going to take you unless you surrender your soul spend as much time as possible learning it, taking classes, reading dry photography jargon every dry waking moment, and getting out in the down and dirty and taking THOUSANDS of pictures to get FIVE good shots of a vase. 

The hardest thing in the universe to take pictures of is kids. Especially young kids. Like mine. They move. Fast. Their attention spans are short, and so if they are doing something cute, by the time you take the tenth of a second to turn on the camera and smash it against your face, they are already off doing something else. AND THEY MOVE. A LOT. So learning how to shoot great pictures with a fancy camera by taking pictures of KIDS is just about the worst thing you could do for your health. I fail more at taking pictures of my kids than the Mariners fail at hanging on to above-average players. That's pretty hard to do. 

Usually, Calen hates getting his picture taken. He will say "cheese", but he will purposefully look the other way. He will do whatever it takes to NOT make eye contact with the camera. Of course Cam is smiling perfectly. Then Calen finally starts to cooperate, but Cam is crawling away. He's done. Then Calen starts whining. He's done too. I bribe snacks. Candy. TV. I try one more round, but it's hopeless. Cam is trying to pull himself up on Calen and Calen is disgusted that Cam is touching him. I give up. I take them inside and change them. The days run is over.

So let me give you this piece of advice when it comes to taking pictures of kids:


DON'T DO IT!!! It's too hard! It's SO frustrating! It makes my brain melt into silly putty and ooze out my ears so crazy people can put it in little eggs and sell it in gumball machines.

No I'm not really serious. Take pictures of your kids. Take lots of pictures. Because they're newborns and cooing and all cute little balls of baby and then you go to the grocery store to buy tortillas and come back and suddenly they're humongous and EATING your tortillas. So in between this tortilla time frame you seriously need to be taking pictures. So spend a million dollars on a nice camera, curse at it, threaten it's life, throw it across the room DO NOT THROW IT but think very strongly about it, read all the boring shit about it and then use it to your advantage (or not). 


I wanted nice spring/Easter pictures of the boys. So I bought overpriced argyle shirts for them. Because every young boy is required to have pictures in an argyle shirt. And fancy hats. Which are kind of ridiculous but in a "ridiculously cute" sort of way. So I forced them to wear them today and sit together and be all "awww I love you you're my brother" to each other while I took like 400 pictures. And they ACTUALLY cooperated, smiled, looked at me and I got BEAUTFIUL pictures.....OF A GODDAMN FENCE. 


Yep, I'm still learning about partial metering or spot metering or whatever type of metering it is, and focusing and all that nonsense that clearly I require a phD to understand. In short. The boys are out of focus. the fence behind him is crystal clear. The pictures are ruined. And most importantly, I have to have a groundhog day and do it ALL over tomorrow. And the WORST part of it is I can't go return the argyle shirts that still have the tags on them (that I pose the kids carefully so you can't see the tags) and get my $25 back. Which of course makes me want to jump to conclusions and chuck my camera out the window. But really I love my camera almost as much as my husband (except I don't sleep with it or call it "honey"). 


Luckily I got a couple okay shots of the kids individually. But absolutely not a single one of them together. Groundhog day tomorrow.

Almost good pictures of these too miscreants. Now I need to learn photoshop to make these pictures actually nice.

Why the Internet Can't Be Free.

Some idiot once said "the best things in the world are free." I don't know WHICH idiot said this but they said it, and it's kind of famous or something. I'm here to prove to you that most certainly is not true.

My kids are pretty awesome (usually). They could be considered some of the "best" things in my life (on the days that they don't act like wild hyenas in a feeding frenzy). My kids are not free. They're actually really effing expensive. They have the nerve to eat all my food and outgrow their clothes every five minutes and (at least one of them) is pooping in poop-catching apparatuses that I have to continue to buy more of. Plus all the AWESOME coolness that is the toy section that I have a hard time saying "no" to. Yeah, kids cost a ton.

My husband is pretty cool too. He isn't free. He eats our food. And requires lots of shiny type uniform items (especially since the Coast Guard can't decide what the standard uniform is going to look like and we have to keep buying new versions of the SAME thing). And every six months or so suddenly he NEEDS a new laptop/tablet/gadget/whatever. 

FAMILY costs a ton of money. We love our family and decided that moving across the country was a super idea. (Actually, that one we can blame the military. Turd-faces). So we spend a trillion dollars (or so) a year on plane tickets.

See where I'm going here? Nothing good is free. 

I used to say that certain things should be free, like the Internet. But now I realize that there is no way that the Internet CAN'T be free. The Internet is TOO good to be able to free.

For example. 50 years ago, you had to drive places to get things done, write letters to dear old Aunt Agnes to hear what songs she sang in church last Sunday, actually LEAVE YOUR HOUSE and be sociable and attend neighborhood gatherings to swap recipes, and pack a suitcase to see the wonders of the world. They were true pioneers.

Psh. Who NEEDS that? That is WAY too much work. Now let's go back to 2012. 

Currently, in my open Internet tabs, I am finding out how to remove the pedal brakes on Calen's bike (No I am not creating an Evel Kinevel, it screws up him learning to pedal), reading a journal (in 2012 we call them BLOGS) of a stay at home mom in Oregon, buying Tony Hawk sneakers for Camden, figuring out how to shoot my camera in manual mode from SEVEN different sources at ONCE, acquiring the recipe for spicy Chinese chicken salad, learning some beginner tips about how to use Photoshop, finding out about what happened today in every friend/family member I have's life (Facebook rocks my socks), and watching penguins. Live.


Oh YES you heard me on that last one. SeaWorld San Diego just put cameras up in their penguin exhibit. And then they decided to stream it live. 24 hours a day. So if I wake up at 3:30am and suddenly decide that I HAVE to see PENGUINS NOW, I can turn on the Penguin Cam, and watch penguins hobble around and squeal at each other and flap their useless wings and be all that penguin cuteness. Now how can anything in this world be more cool than penguins live on your computer screen. They are PENGUINS and they are awesome doing their PENGUIN awesomeness. Live. Doesn't that just make your head want to explode with all that coolness?!


Now look at all that you had to do to get shit done 50 years ago. It would take a week! Look at how much I got done today. And it took me 15 f**king seconds. Wrap your head around that one 1962! Holy hell.


See? The Internet is all that is awesome and that is WAY too good to be free. If the Internet was free, the delicate balance of the universe would be turned upside down and the Earth would pop like a pinata full of candy and confetti. And it isn't even my birthday. So even I can understand why we have to pay for the Internet. I am a fair submissive patron to society.


Well now that I'm "almost" over paying for Internet (because in reality I really do wish it was free. Like air. And...air. Is air the ONLY free thing on Earth??), on to the picture of the day. Which is completely unrelated to this post. Again. Because there are no penguins to take pictures of around here.


Calen likes to get himself dressed. He's new at it and it takes about 30 years for him to get one shirt on. But it's really cute in a "I'm trying to be a big boy but I'm ending up looking like an octopus trapped in a mailbox" sort of way. Which gives me plenty of time to take pictures of it (and watch penguins while he's struggling to get his head through the sleeve). 

at least he got all the right body parts in the right holes this time

Why I never step into Disney Stores

We went to Olive Garden today with friends. (Why did I actually believe that going to a restaurant with my two kids was a GOOD idea??). Their lunch menu has pictures. I like pictures. It makes things look delicious. And I don't have to read stupid names for menu items and then stutter over them when the waiter asks what I'm going to have. Usually I forget what the name is by the time the waiter gets to me because I'm busy keeping my 10 month old from stuffing 27 packs of sweetener in his mouth and my 2 year old from stabbing the table with a fork. So I can just show them a menu and point to a pretty picture and say THIS one. My friends think I'm ridiculous. I think I'm smarter than them. Or at least sound smarter than if I actually tried to pronounce half of the names on that menu. And then I asked the waiter for a spoon. I was not having soup, I wanted something that was shiny and not sharp for my impatient infant to chew on and bang his entire environment with. The waiter asked if a plastic spoon would suffice, and I said NO, it HAD to be metal, and shiny, and LOUD when banged with. Who cares if Cam annoys the entire restaurant with his drumming skills, he wasn't screaming and I could actually eat my lunch. Success. That poor waiter had no idea what he was getting into serving us three stay-at-home-moms.

I looooooooove you my dear friend! If you make fun of me on Facebook I get to make fun of you in my blog. Less people see the blog, I promise. And you're probably smarter than me. 

Beforehand we went to the Disney Store. I don't take my kids into the Disney Store. It's hazardous to their health. And my bank account. Especially the movie Cars section. And Toy Story.

Usually we don't even step foot into that store to prevent catastrophic meltdowns. But today was a special day, and Calen's buddy Mason was letting him pick something out for his early birthday present (with Mason's mom's permission...Mason didn't steal her credit card or anything). Calen picked out some $15 collection of Cars 2 cars. And he was happy. And I was happy. And in the clear...I was going to get out of that store without paying a dime. YES. Until he walked up towards the cashier, and the section behind him was all Spiderman. 

First of all, Calen is newly educated to Spiderman and all his webby awesomeness. So he officially has decided that Spidey is "cool." And here is a Spiderman section. Action figures, masks, clothes, everything. And right along side all of this is Iron Man and Captain America, and all sorts of other coolness.

Second of all, WHAT is Marvel licensed stuff doing in a Disney Store is beyond me. But suddenly Calen HAS.TO.HAVE a little stuffed Spidey. And at first I'm like "you are clearly out of your mind" but then those beady little eyes are so cute in a "Buy Me Please Give Me a Home I'm an Orphan!" kind of way that I'm like okay FINE, and get a Captain America one as well for Cam. (Hey, it WAS 2 for $20. Yeah, you read that right. THAT's how expensive the Disney Store is). And everyone was happy again. Except my wallet. Goddamn Disney Store.

But I already had a plan with these little Marvel guys. They weren't going to stick around. Calen was so wrapped up in his new Cars cars that by the time we got into the house he had forgotten about them. He was DESPERATE to get those stupid cars out of the box.

Okay we need to talk about the box. I understand that shoplifting is a real problem. I worked in Loss Prevention for 2 years. The little plastic thingys to keep toys attached to boxes are infuriating. But THIS box takes the Gold Medal of manic-extremist-shoplifting-preventative-apparatuses. Each car was SCREWED into the box with METAL screws. Two screws each, which required a teeny tiny Phillips screwdriver. I kid.you.not. Calen wanted those cars out NOW in the mall. I don't walk around with a screwdriver in my diaper bag. Sorry Tim Allen. We stopped at a watch repair booth. Wrong size. A jewlery store. No luck. I'm tearing the cardboard around the cars apart. I looked like a savage desperate housewife on cocaine trying to get those stupid cars out. I told Calen he'd have to wait until we got home. Which of course ensued a 45 minute drive from Disney Store to home listening to Calen insisting that I "fix cars need help PUHLEEZE". And once I DID get it home it took me 30 MINUTES to unscrew each car out of the box, and was as frustrating and challenging as redoing the plumbing in our kitchen would be. Mind-effing-boggling.

So let's get back to Spidey and Capt-Am. Once Calen got his Cars cars I snuck upstairs with our new superhero friends, gave them a wink, and heaved them in the closet and slammed the door. In less than 24 hours, they will be completely forgotten. Until Easter rolls around in a month, when each boy will be delightfully surprised by a superhero in their basket that is completely NEW and awesome. Even though it isn't new, but they can't remember that. Calen MIGHT be like "oh hey Spid-er-man there he is!" but Cam won't have a clue. A winner is me!

I've done this with SO many toys. For example, the superhero cape that Calen wore around yesterday. He got it for Christmas. And didn't care. So I put it back in our closet for future "rainy-day-and-we-need-something-interesting-and-new-STAT" references, or holidays. The kids open something up moderately interesting, they like it but it isn't mission critical in their life right then, so we sweep it up and hide it for the next time. It'll be new to them. Again.

See? Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.  

The good news is that once Spiderman comes back a month from now, I can stop kissing that stupid wooden ambulance toy goodnight and move on to Spidey. It's more socially acceptable to smooch superheroes goodnight than vehicles. 

 

How could YOU say no to these pitiful little orphans? We'll see you again in a month - have fun in the closet! (not THAT kind of fun...)

The Superhero Education Program

My toddler is OBSESSED really REALLY likes cars. And monster trucks. And trains. And airplanes. And just about anything else on this planet that has a motor and two or four wheels. Which is great and everything. Super easy to buy for, takes nothing but a short walk to the fire station to entertain him for the rest of the afternoon.

Now this is all great and awesome, but it's hard to get him interested in ANYTHING else. I'd like to expand his horizons a little bit and get him into other things. Like moose hunting. Or robot fighting.

But since those are probably going to happen over my dead body until he is much older, I decided to start with baby steps. Like super-heroes. What little boy doesn't like super-heroes?

Luckily Netflix offers all sorts of episodes of Spiderman (the ones from the 80s and early 90s! Tubular dude!), Avengers and X-Men cartoons. We've watched some and I've tried to explain bad guys and good guys (he calls everyone bad guys). I cheer when the heroes beat up the bad guys. You know, try to get him excited. He'll watch it, but he doesn't care THAT much about the story. Probably because he doesn't understand story and narrative that much yet (according to his speech therapist). But he'll be sure to pick out EVERY.SINGLE car that appears on tv. 

We put in Spiderman (live action, 2002 release) today. He seemed to really like it. Until the bad guy shot the roof of the highjacked car out. 

"OH NOOOOO!!!!!! AWWWWW POOR CAR!!!! IT'S BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!!"

(tears ensue). 


It's really hard for me to keep my composure sometimes. The first time he did this, I laughed. Which he didn't appreciate. The next couple times I mumbled irritatedly "relax Buddy, it's NOT a big deal." Then the last time he did and seriously was crying over it, I snapped.


"Calen holy crap it DOES NOT MATTER it's just a car!!!! There are people BLEEDING beside the car you should be crying over them!"

Which of course wasn't the right thing to say. Because nothing is JUST a car to Calen. And if people are bleeding to death all you have to do is "kiss it better" and you are instantly healed. 

And off to playing with cars he goes. Spiderman is still on but since I announced that the cars in the movie don't matter, he's over it, and not interested anymore. Clearly I suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.

His other current obsession are these ridiculous American flag armbands that he insists on wearing all.the.time. This evening he was naked except for those armbands and his Captain America underwear (see? I'm even trying to influence how awesome superheroes are via under garments). So I brought out his red cape and mask that he NEVER wears and put them on him and told him he was SO HANDSOME and was a SUPERHERO CALEN and he could get BAD GUYS with it and was LIKE SPIDERMAN and that the cape would make him FLY if he ran fast enough.


Parenting lesson #1: Lying is necessary. The more extravagant, the more encouraged they are.

Calen of course thought it was AWESOME. And he went running through the house trying to fly (I think he forgot all about the bad guys and superhero and spiderman stuff, he was just trying to fly). But he's wearing it. And it's a start.


Baby steps people, baby steps.

Teaching Calen how to save the world, one kitchen at a time

(Disclaimer: No I do not intend on taking Calen moose hunting. No Calen is not suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from me announcing to him that people are bleeding or that the broken car isn't a tragedy. And no I don't lie to my kids ALL the time. Only most of the time. And yes I am extremely sarcastic especially when I'm writing. And yes you ARE stupid for believing all the extremities of this blog. That's why it's a blog, and not 100% reality.)

Saturday Night Fever!

Saturday night in our house is usually Wawa night. Brad and I spend all week counting calories, exercising (okay fine. Brad is usually the one that exercises. Way to blow my cover) and eating as healthy as we can without filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Saturday nights, we put the kids down for bed, then do a violent round of rock paper scissors to decide who will drive to Wawa. And I already know what you West Coasters are thinking.


Wawa? What is that?? Are you wailing? Did you acquire a stutter? Is it Indian?

Wawa is only the best convenience store on Earth, my uneducated friends. It's all your modern necessities at 7-11, but then it goes far beyond the call of duty by offering cheap delicious coffee in a thousand different flavors/blends/whatever coffee people call it, AND the best part of Wawa: The hoagie center.

Think Subway meets Bank of America. You walk up to an ATM looking machine and order...via touch screen awesomeness. Push a button here for pickles. Push here for tomatoes. Push here to toast your sandwich. Push here to print a receipt. And the best part is you don't have to TALK.TO.ANYONE. Which is a personal victory to me because #1 I dislike people, and #2 at Subway, when I talk to PEOPLE they always screw up my order in some form or fashion. NO excuses messing up a sandwich at Wawa when the people are reading off a computer! 

Not that they don't still make mistakes. But at least I can blame dyslexic New Jersey natives that didn't pass English.

Back to what I was saying. Wawa is the best place ever and every Saturday night we go there after the kids go to bed and buy JUNK FOOD(!!!!!!). Yep, those are our wild weekend nights. Potato chips and pints of Ben and Jerry's. Down boy, down.

We haven't gone to Wawa yet tonight (ummm HELLO It's 8:20 let's get this show on the ROAD!), but I had some leftover Cherry Garcia ice cream in my freezer from last week. I was delighted because I thought hey I can be lazy and still have my junk food! But I opened it up and it wasn't just freezer burned, it had ICE FORMATIONS on the top. Not like a crystal here or there. A developing GLACIER. I thought this freezer was self-defrosting. Poor Ben and Jerry clearly didn't get the message.

Off to Wawa I go. 

Ice sculptures in my Ben and Jerry's

This picture doesn't do it justice. Mainly because I'm still struggling with manual mode on my camera and it was focusing on the wrong thing. But clearly, those are ice FORMATIONS. 

The cheap alternative to Disneyland.

Calen's best friend is moving to another state in three weeks. I haven't told him yet but I'm not even sure he would understand what it would mean. So we try to spoil them as much as possible while they're together. 

Tonight we took them to the Yogo Factory after dinner AT bedtime to get frozen yogurt. Because we are clearly wild and out of control parents. And then once they got all sugared up and morphed them into squealing rabid baboons we took them to the dollar store to go wild in the toy aisle. Calen picked out the stupidest looking wooden ambulance ever, but he HAD TO HAVE IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE BEST TOY HE'S EVER SEEN IN HIS LIFE THE LAST FIVE MINUTES of course. And both he and Mason picked out matching yellow firemen hats. In the next aisle, we found MONSTER TRUCK birthday plates/cups/hats/etc that of course Calen flipped his fireman lid over, because he wants a monster truck birthday cake for his party in a couple weeks. 

Children quickly morphing into baboons via sugar infusion

Party supplies, an ambulance and a firehat combined with frozen yogurt, my boy's night was magical.

I could take my almost-3 year old to Disneyland. (or I guess DisneyWORLD, because it's a shorter flight. I guess). I could spend 2 grand on plane tickets, a few hundred on a car rental, a thousand on hotel (or so), however much admission costs, food, Mickey Mouse ears, 80 dollar sweatshirts and horrifying Kermit balloons (oh wait, that's Muppets isn't it), stay for a week, come home and spend the next four years paying it off. And it would be MAGICAL.

Or, I can drive one exit up the parkway, spend $6 at Yogo and $2 at the dollar store. And it was MAGICAL. I LOVE this age.


(yes I know Disney is all that is awesome and every kid should have the privilege to experience it and if I don't take my kids to Disney my heart will rot out and baby Jesus will cry and manatees will go extinct. And BEFORE you send that hate-mail Brad and I are planning on taking the boys in 2013 or early 2014. Get over your life).

However all is NOT great with the world. I had two helpings of dinner, chips and salsa, and then cheesecake yogurt with fruit toppings afterwards. My stomach is going to implode and I'm eating so many Tums I might as well put them in a bowl and pour some milk over them. So not much else to talk about tonight, unless you want me to blog about heartburn and Gas-X, which I think if I talk about too much I might upchuck, and I've already blogged about bodily fluids in the last week.

Simple things that make little boys happy. Like plastic fireman hats

 

Revenge of the Netflix

Throughout the day today I had like 20 ideas for today's blog. And then I flicked on Netflix and Revenge of the Nerds came on. And thus, my mind turned into college fraternity jello-mixed-with-beer. So, no topic tonight. Sorry, Nerds win this round! 

And Ogre is the best character ever.

I was a nerd growing up. Okay not like one of the Revenge nerds. I failed math can't play a musical instrument and I made out with a boy before I hit adulthood and I didn't wear bifocals. But I definitely wasn't in the "in"-crowd, not a jock or a cheerleader or very popular. Oh but I tried to be "cool", wearing Old Navy and Abercrombie (hey it was COOL to wear those stupid t-shirts with the brand name slapped right on the front like a bumper sticker in the late 90's/early 00's) and Sketchers and flare jeans. And I wrote "notes" to the popular kids. Do teenagers these days write notes? (do they even know how to write?) Or do they just text/tweet/Facebook to each other when they're only 6 inches away from each other in class in text language that all teenagers think is cool but the truth is not even they know how to decipher it.

"OMG Jenny this is SO boring."

"I Kno zOMG! But H is SOO hottttttt today wit his new kix"

"I kno I wan 2go2 his party at his crib 2nite RU goin?????????"

"No cant B out 2 l8 2nite"

"Grl U Sux monkE buttz"

"ummmmm...what U mean 2 say?"

Or something like that. I don't even know how to pretend to text like that. Unlike most high school graduates, I prefer to use English when I text. And complete sentences. And proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. I know, high standards. 

If you got someone's phone number in a note that said "Call me! 425-555-1011" and they were even slightly above average in on the Cool-O-Meter, you were on cloud 9.


"LIKE OHMYGOD she gave me her number she actually wants to talk to me outside of school I MUST be so popular this is going to be awesome WHOOO".

In high school on Friday football nights my friends and I would get to the stadium early to get front row "seats" (we never actually down, so it's more like just a place to stand). And now that I think about it a group of 6 or 7 not-so-popular nerds in the front row doing chants and cheers with the cheerleaders seems kind of ridiculous (but it was fun). Luckily in my little farm town, the popular kids weren't (too) mean to the less fortunate nerdlets. We actually all meshed pretty well. 


But that doesn't mean I was invited to any keggers or orgies or bear wrestling or whatever the hell the POPULAR kids wasted their weekends on.

The GOOD thing about being a nerd(ish...c'mon, do you really think I'm going to fully admit that I wasn't at least a little awesome?) is that my circle of nerdish friends were very real friends and not fake ones. And even though we're coming up our ten year reunion this summer (eff me I'm getting old), I still consider them my friends. Real friends.


Well isn't this just an awwwww mushy mushy let's hug everyone and sing a song moment. Outrageous. I'm going to go watch a violent movie.


(Hey look, you got a topic! Aren't YOU just a lucky duck)


Once again today's picture is unrelated to the post (especially since I didn't actually intend to post anything at all). Today was a shockingly warm and sunny so I forced the kids to go outside. What an abusive parent I am. I was screwing around with manual mode on my Beast dslr camera. I was trying to make the kids smile so I'm sitting on the front yard on a street where there are probably 25 townhome buildings (5 units a building) ALL with their windows open, and I'm sitting there loudly making Donald Duck noises. Which I'm sure all 200 families started inspecting their garbage disposals to see if a spider monkey got stuck in them. But, I got a smile. Which is even more adorable with snack bar squishing through his teeth.