The day we left the cell phone store with our new smartphones, practically skipping back to the car, happy to be free from our circa 1990′s toaster-sized, old-school, beater phone, my once-excited husband suddenly had a look of horror washed over his face.
“We have to hide these.”
I stopped skipping walking right in the middle of the parking lot, causing my happily-swinging-alongside-me shopping bag to thwack me in the thigh. Ow. “What are you talking about, ‘hide‘ them?”
“Yes, hide them. From the children.”
And then the lightbulb went off *DING*, and I knew just how smart a statement that was. “Yes! Good point, babe. Quickly, put it in your pocket before they see you.”
“They” being, our heat-seeking-missile toddlers who were waiting in the car with their older sister. You see, if there’s an electronics device within reach, it will be in their hands in .3 seconds flat.
“Mommy? Wha’dya get?” sayeth toddler numero uno.
“Nothing baby, we’re leaving now. We got nothing. Nothing at all.”
She could smell the fear. I knew my shiny new phone’s days were numbered.
“But you has a bag, dere, momma. Wha’s in it? Did you get a new pone?” she says, pointing to the eleventy-thousand signs that showcase the store we just came from. (Read more…)
My husband is a really smart guy. Seriously, he can read about something in a book and understand how to do it himself, no instruction required. I consider myself fortunate because this ability means he can fix things around our house that would be far more expensive to have done professionally. Sometimes, though, this blessing is a curse.
No matter how simple the task, with hubby dear, it always becomes complicated. This weekend, as I was lugging both kids by myself to a home improvement store to buy some forgotten item for one of his projects, I thought about what it would be like if I cooked the way he does home projects. I think it would go something like this:
1. Decide I’m going to make lasagna for dinner. Get down pan and all required “tools” to make lasagna and spread them all over the kitchen. Declare kitchen “dangerous” and say he has to keep children out of kitchen until lasagna is prepared and area is once again deemed safe.
2. Take break. Leave stuff out and area declared “dangerous” overnight.
3. Next morning, start to make lasagna. Begin browning meat and realize I don’t have any ricotta cheese. After meat is brown, go to store for ricotta, leaving children with him.
4. Come back. Realize I also don’t have lasagna noodles, or that the ones I do have are the wrong ones. Go back to store. Call home to ask his opinion on lasagna noodles. Get feelings hurt when he appears not to give a damn about lasagna noodles and asks when I am coming home. Fail to notice screaming children in the background of the call or his obvious frustration at the fact that he’s had the kids all day while I’ve been making multiple trips to the store. (Read more…)
With this 3rd pregnancy, I really should be thinking about starting another 529, about how we’re going to make room for a nursery, about things. that. really. matter. Instead, I obsess over the superficial.
Is this pregnancy going to destroy me and my body forevermore? (Sob)
First, it starts with the first trimester weight gain-when it’s too early to tell everyone and you just have to sit there and bite your lip and you KNOW everyone’s wondering whether you’ve been hitting the all-you-can-eat buffet one too many times lately. And the belly! It took until 4 months or something with #1 to start showing and, this time, I swear I blinked and the next minute I was 9 weeks and downright rotund. Dude. Breaking out the fat, ugly clothes now? For 31 more weeks? Lord, no. (Read more…)