My Friends are Hotter than your Friends

Ok, I guess I don't know that like 100%, because, well, I've never met your friends. But I know mine are the best. There were a lot of things I could have blogged about today: Friday, falling behind (because I so am), or following through (because I completely intend to). Honestly though, I could think of no better word for today than Friend. Most of the ones I will mention are the greatest friends I have never met. People I have met in the blogosphere who are absolutely fantastic people. People you want in your corner, need in your corner, and who you want to be those things for too. So here are my friends, my peeps (yep I went there), my partners in crime. Some are new, some I've been talking to for quite some time, but they all have something very special. Here are the best people I've never met:

Momma's that make my day:

Cari - Bubble Gum on my Shoe
@bubblegumcari

This chick rocks! I mean seriously, she is funny, she is kind, and she always responds when I send her a whiny email because I apparently don't have anyone to talk to. Thanks Cari, you have no idea how much I appreciate you. Her blog is not only on my Google homepage but I also get emails when she updates (I have a patience problem, or perhaps I'm a stalker..shh don't tell anyone). Her post never fail to inspire, make me smile, or usually laugh, hard, while I'm at work. Generally though, all of the above. She is a single Momma with two beautiful kids. Her blog is my favorite, and one that even if I haven't gotten an email I will check Google anyway just to be sure. It's that good! And did I mention she's HOT!!!

Christina - Solitary Mama
@Cmajaski

Like Cari, this chick totally rocks. She has snark-tasm down to a fine science. Don't believe me, read this. Don't worry, I'll wait. (Jeopardy music playing) See I told you so. She is one of the most real, blunt, could give a crap less what you think (which is as it should be) people I have ever had the good fortune of "knowing". Her posts are hilarious, her anti-blogger series is my favorite series I've read since I started blogging. And Stupid List Friday takes a close second. Check them out or miss out on some of the funniest shit you will ever read. Warning: If you lack a sense of humor, or otherwise can't take a joke for what it is, this blog may not be for you, just saying. Though I've heard you can buy a sense of humor at Meijer for $1.99 - Worthy investment.


Sue - Sue's Nutrition Buzz 
@ssunithi  

I haven't known Sue for as long as the other two ladies above but I can tell you she is amazing!! I mean you just don't meet people like her anymore. My girl got the flu about a month ago. It was wicked vicious, she wouldn't eat, or drink, and basically all she did was lay around for about a week. We took her too the doc, and was told that pretty much all we could do was keep her hydrated. It is rough to watch your baby be sick and not be able to do anything about it. By day four of her laying around and being lethargic, I remembered that I had a huge resource right at my finger tips that I hadn't even thought of. I sent the call out on Twitter for help. Thanks to Solitary Mama, I was shortly in contact with Sue who, if you couldn't tell by the name of her blog, knows her stuff when it comes to nutrition. If you have ever tried to give your kid pedialyte (sp?) you know it pretty much tastes like butt, but I didn't want to keep giving her gatorade, way too much sugar. Sue gave me some great suggestions, and then wrote a post on how to make yummy pedialyte pops. I made them, chicka loved them, and a few days later, to my surprise Sue took time out of a trip she was on to message me and check in on Lala. It blew me away! She gave me her email for if I ever needed her (so great), and then just last week asked again how Lala was doing. I don't know many people in my real life that are as dedicated as that.

If there were more people in this world like the three ladies above, I think we would live in a better place. Now not to be left out, there are some Daddies I stalk follow fairly regularly, though I don't chat with them as much they are all very unique.

Beard and Pigtails
@BeardPigtails

Here we have a shining example of a daddy doing it right. Beard is down to earth, has for sure one of the cutest little girls I have ever seen, and he posts on a wide range of things. From the outings they have, to the DIY projects he has going on. It's always fun, and most often humorous, especially the pigtailisms. :-) She is a funny, spunky little girl, and I love his blog (even if he only gives her a quarter for allowance, yeesh).


How to be a Dad
 @HowToBeADad

These to guys, Charlie and Andy, are quite possibly the two funniest Dad's on the planet, or at least on the net. Their diagrams, pure awesome sauce. Lets just say reading their blog at work may not be a great idea (besides you're supposed to be working). I crack up every time I read a post, and now they have a YouTube channel! My two favorites of theirs would have to be the "My wife just said" posts, and the diagram posts, both are epic. If you don't know who these guys are, you are missing out.



Those are my top five daily reads, not to say they are the only daily reads, but I really wanted to share them! They are great! Who are your must reads? Do you have any blogs that make you laugh so hard they are dangerous at work...please share. 

P.S.There are so many others I would love to put in here, but as it has taken all day to write this and I am very tired (one of my eyes is literally closed at the moment) they will have to wait for another day. Hope you all have a beautiful Easter. See you again tomorrow for G of the A to Z Challenge!!!!  

 

Dear Serenity

Oh my girl, there just aren't words powerful enough to express what you mean to me and the profound way you have changed my life. Look how far we have come since that first night together.

You were perfect from the very beginning, and you have grown more beautiful with each passing day. Every day you make mommy laugh, and remind me that there is so much more beauty in life than ugliness. You are the heart that beats in my chest

The blood that pumps through my veins

You are silly and the sweetest little girl I have ever seen

You are and always will be Mommies little princess

My dreams for you are very clear, I want you to be happy Baby Girl, no matter what. Dream, always dream, and never let anyone take them away from you. You can be anything you want to be, a doctor, an artist, a million things. Follow your dreams, follow your passions, and mommy will always be there to help you, hug you, and lift you up when you need support.

You are my happy, Serenity, you are my world, you are the best thing in my life. Thank you for coming to me and giving me the privilege of being your momma. I will always work to be the best momma I can be for you, we may have rough times (your teenage years if you are anything like I was) but as long as we have each other Chicka we will make it through. I love you so, so very much!! Never ever forget that!

Call Me Crazy

I was having a conversation the other day with a truly delightful woman, several years my senior, about how different things are even since I was a child. The rash of teen pregnancies, drug use, gang violence, murders, and some other really yucky stuff that makes my heart hurt. She asked my opinion on how I thought on the issue of teens intentionally getting pregnant, or just flat out not having the knowledge to keep it from happening. I told her exactly what I thought, she asked my opinion after all, let's just say she was less than impressed. As I said she is roughly 80 so she grew up in a very different time, perhaps I should have little white lied it. My mom always tells me I am too blunt, I can't help it, I think I was born without that filter. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. She asked specifically if I knew how I would handle it with my own daughter later on down the line(she's only two, thankfully!). In no uncertain terms I told her I knew exactly how I would handle it, I will be talking to her regularly about sex and why she is worth not having sex with anyone, EVER. :-) No but seriously, we will not be having "the talk" just once, we will talk about it many times, and she will know that she can come to me. I also may have said something to the effect of, her first period or 15, whichever comes first, she will be on birth control.

At this point I am sure this woman is having a stroke, her face was pale and she was doing the "clutching her pearls" move.

Her: You are going to condone sexual activity!?!?!

Me: I did not say that.

Her (her voice is steadily rising in pitch): But putting her on birth control is basically giving her the go ahead.

Me (still quite calm): Umm no, that's not at all what it is, to me it is the smartest thing I could do. I was able to talk to my mother, I told her I thought I was ready and she took me that day to get birth control. I didn't have sex for some time after that, but if I had I wouldn't be risking pregnancy. I am not so gullible to think that if she is going to do it, no matter how closely I watch her, she will find a way.

Her: I...I just can't believe you are ok with this, that isn't right.

Me (getting a touch defensive): No, babies having babies is not right, making adult decisions without the proper knowledge to make those decisions is not right, not having an understanding ear to talk to is not right. Me being there for my girl is the most right thing in the world, and as I am her mother, I think the decision on how to raise her and when to discuss these thing is mine. But bet my girl doesn't have a baby in high school, making an already hard time in life almost impossible, thank you very much!

She left very shortly after that, I felt a tiny bit bad, but not really. I will do whatever I have to do to ensure that my daughter has the fullest, most enriched life filled with all possibilities for success that she can have, and while I understand babies are precious, believe me I love mine more than life, there is time for that.....Later.



What are your thoughts? Do you think I am being crazy, or too "progressive"? How will you be handling this when it comes, or how have you handled it already?


This was an A to Z Challenge post for C......stay tuned for more :-) Leave your link to your challenge posts too please, I would love to read them!!
 

Wednesday WTF's

Oh Wednesday, why do you taunt me.

Wednesdays are different from the rest of the week. Wednesday is my Friday, which of course makes it go by at a snails pace. The real difference though is that Wednesdays Lala goes and spends the day with my mom while I work. Lala is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a morning person. This will I am sure bite me in the butt huge when school time rolls around. Anyway back to mornings with my crabtastic toddler. Waking her up is like playing Russian Roulette, you never really know what will happen. You may get lucky, she may pop up and say the beloved phrase, "Hi Momma", but more often than not she doesn't pop up, and she most certainly doesn't say anything resembling Hi.

Morning

Our Wednesday mornings generally go like this:

Me: (In a happy sing songy voice) Good Morning Baby Girl....

Lala: *Rolls over, grabs her blanket and nestles in for more sleep*

Me: (Again) Good Morning Lala......

Lala: *Incoherent mumbling followed by some hand waving and shaking of little red haired head)

Me: (Seriously this could go on forever) Good Morning.......(please note the lack of nickname, at this point 15 minutes have passed and we now have 5 to get out of the house or I will be late for work, again, frustration abounds)

I have been rubbing her back, pushing her hair from her forehead, and trying to gently wake her. Obviously this is not going to work. Time to switch tactics. Lala has a complete, kind of obsessive attachment to her Tinker Bell blanket, and her huge Elmo. So next I take both out of the bed. She raise up on hands and knees and blindly (she still won't open her eyes) feels around for her blankie. When she doesn't find it, the shit hits the fan. Cue the beginning of the wailing siren that will last until I manage to wrestle her into a fresh diaper and some clothes, and she realizes that we are going bye bye.

Fast forward an hour (that's how long it takes me to get to work from where I live, winter's going to be a biatch) she has calmed and is sitting in her seat with some breakfast and milk. All is well.........right up until they come to pick her up (they meet me at work so I don't have to drive out of my way, nice right?).  She is all jazzed to see Uncle "Bo, or Jenks, whoever comes to get her, until she realizes that Mommy isn't going with her. Cue the second siren session. I have never been so happy to get to work in all of my life.

Lunchtime

I drive to my parents house for lunch to see my girl and give my family a little break. I get to the house and guess who is passed out cold.....yep, you guessed it, Lala. She, again, sleeps through my entire lunch hour. Want to know why? I forgot to take my laptop home with me. This may sound strange, in fact I am sure it will, if I take my laptop home for lunch she never sleeps while I'm there. If I don't she will sleep the entire time I am home. It is a bit skewed and bass-akwards but that is just the way it is. The kid has radar, I swear she knows when I bring my computer home to do work or get my email cleaned out, or goodness forbid blog a bit.

Lunch is over, and I am sitting at work, missing my chicka. For the record, I was late for work this morning, and then somehow, with no ones help but my own this time, late again coming back from lunch. I am kind of amazed that my boss hasn't canned my behind yet, I mean I think I would probably fire me, lol. Then again that probably explains why I am willing to drive an hour to work when gas is almost $4 a gallon.


This post really didn't have a point to be honest, but I went too long without posting and am either rusty at it, or quite possibly on the losing end of a psychotic break. Hmmm....do you think there is a winning end of a psychotic break? Breakdowns aside, I just really missed talking to all of my lovelies, all two of you. :-D And wanted to share how fabulous my morning was, hehe. I moan and groan but I have a wonderful, very understanding boss (for like the first time ever), and while my child has developed a very strong opinion on what she does and doesn't want to do, I seriously crack up almost the entire time she is having a fit. She is just so little and cute, makes it kind of hard to take her serious you know. I imagine that will begin to piss her off for real at some point, years and years from now, until then I will continue to have a little snicker when after telling her One Thousand Three Hundred Seventy-Five and a Half times to get the hell (not in those words, no angry emails please) off the table, she slides down and gets stuck (not painfully, that is never funny) between it and the couch. Oh the frustration is hilarious.

Looks a bit like this, this is the "Why can't I have my way" face.

More and more often now though she is learning to use words to express her frustration, rather than slapping something out of my hand (oh...fun friggin times I tell ya), she now is more apt to shake her head no when she doesn't want what i am giving her. She has learned to say please (the word and the sign, I'm so proud) and point if what she wants something too high for her to reach. It doesn't mean she always gets whatever it is she wants, that is obviously still a work in progress. Lala believes that if she says please it is a given that she will get what she wants. Most times it is my phone, or the computer (hell no!!), or some other something she has no business playing with.

Teaching her that "No" isn't the end of the world is challenging, but I like to think we are making some progress, even if it's miniscule. With the "terrible two's" right around the corner (or in my opinion already in motion) it has become even more important to me to teach her things like hitting the dog because you are frustrated that Mommy said no is absolutely unacceptable behavior. That particular incident only happened once, several months ago, but I was in shock when it happened. I truly believe it was because to the pup's misfortune of being the closest thing to her when it happened. That was also the first and only time she has been in time out. I know every kid is different, and I am by far not an expert by anyone's standards, but I can tell you that my child, my not even 2 year old Lala has never really done anything that would cause me to have to put her in time out. Except that one time of course.

When she is frustrated and throwing fits, it generally means she is overstimulated, bored, tired, hungry, thirsty, teething, or any number of other things that aren't her fault. Don't get me wrong, this girl.....

Has a temper to go with all of her gorgeous red curls. Don't let the innocent look fool you, 3 seconds after I took this picture I pulled her off of this big thing, she had been climbing it all day despite my many protests and trying ineffectively to block the stupid ladder, and it was all out war. She wigged out for at least a good hour. Nothing calmed her, not even my phone, every so often she would pick herself up from where she was laying (she threw herself on the ground, for dramatic effect I'm sure) and try to head back over for another climb. Then the process would begin anew, it was trying, but absolutely hilarious. I don't know about you but watching my 22 month old little try to "run the show" and staging protests, please direct your attention to the picture below for a small demonstration, kills me.

This is towards the end of a protest, she is beginning to realize it isn't working, lmao!

So wow this post kind of got all crazy and long and not even close to what I was originally intending to post about. That's what's great about writing, if you just let it come, most times it is effortless. Which reminds me, I am also working on the rest of my Story, I posted the beginning a while ago, and really truly every time I came back to it, I just couldn't find the right words. Nothing seemed to fit in with the emotion and development of my two characters. I think I am ready to go back to it though, so hopefully very soon I will be finishing it up, or at the very least adding the second "chapter" to a story that, while it is difficult for me to write, has been pushing at me to write it, banging around in my head until it finally beat me into submission. So if you are interested go over and read the first part, leave me some critiques, and part two will be hitting the blogosphere very soon. :-)

That is all for me today, yes I know what you're thinking......Finally! I didn't think she would ever shut up. Haha I hope you all are having an absolutely wonderful week, and that your weekend comes fast!


Heading home to see my Lala :-D