Skinny Jeans

I had a very strange experience while shopping for jeans the other day.  First of all, let me say that the last time I went shopping for...well, any kind of clothing for myself...was right after Alexa was born.  And I'm pretty sure my mom bought me the jeans I got then.  Anyway, fast forward three years.  Those post-Alexa jeans are too short (who would have thought, right?), so now it's cold out and I don't have any jeans that fit.  My first disappointment was walking into the store and realizing that they don't have a section for 'I just stopped breastfeeding and immediately gained 5-10 pounds'.  What the hell.  OK, so obviously I need to change my approach.  That's OK, I can adapt...or so I thought.  It took me about 10 minutes to find a pair of jeans that were not labeled "skinny".  I'm sorry, what?  I mean, I'm not completely out of it, I knew about skinny jeans. I was just unaware of the sheer quantity of them and the complete lack of anything else!  In one store I was in, they not only had skinny jeans, they had "super skinny" jeans.  Who wears those?  I'm serious.  Who is their target marketing group?  Because I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that 98% of women are not shaped like 9 year old boys, and therefore, would look horrible in skinny (and especially super skinny) jeans.  I know, there is always that group of outliers.  That strange group of women who's thighs don't rub together.  And trust me, I'm kind of jealous of the lack of chaffing that you experience.  But for the large majority of us, we need real jeans that fit real women.  And I don't mean skinny jeans that are labeled "curvy" with a "mid rise waist and roomy through the hip and thigh".  Skinny jeans with a curvy fit is an oxymoron.  Speaking of oxymorons... skinny jeans in any size above a 4 is an oxymoron also.  I know, I know.  There are some super tall girls who wear larger sizes and yet are proportioned so that skinny jeans actually look really good on them.  Now before you start thinking 'Oh yeah, that is totally me.  I look fantastic in my skinny jeans!', if you are shorter than 5'9'', it's not you.  Go ahead and absorb that fact and then go buy yourself some new pants.  This is tough love, people, tough love.  I am here for all of my fellow big-butted women, trying to save you from looking nasty.  And please don't think that I'm calling anybody fat or saying for anyone to loose weight in order to be able to fit into those jeans.  I have a butt and I always will.  I like my ass.  It looks good.  I mean, the flab to muscle ratio is a little bit skewed in the wrong direction after having two kids, but I'm working on that.  And just because I like the butt I have, doesn't mean that I need to be squeezing it into a pair of jeans that makes me look like _____ (I was going to write here a description of what the jeans look like on me but it's indescribable.  There are no words).

Do you know who the real genius in all this is?  The guy (or girl) who first saw skinny jeans on a runway somewhere and decided "Yes! We can sell these to everyday women".  I feel like there was probably a down-to-earth assistant (probably with mildly wavy brown hair and glasses) who was like "Sir, everyday women won't look good in those jeans.  They were made for the super skinny models to wear."  And then the guy was like "I know!  That's what makes it so perfect!  We call them 'skinny jeans' and everyone will think that they make them look skinny! They will sell like crazy!  Then we can sit back and watch all the young women and teenage girls in America prance around with these horrible jeans on!  It will be hilarious!!!  Muahhhahahahaha!"  (That last part was his evil laugh...I didn't say that he was nice, just that he was a genius.)  The genius part about of this is that it actually worked!  And it obviously made this guy super rich. So, to the random rich skinny jean selling guy out there somewhere: good job.  To his assistant:  You are a failure.  Maybe you need to make a different career choice.  Perhaps something behind a desk.  In a cubicle.  To all of you ladies who need to now buy some new pants: good luck and don't give in to the 'skinny' label.  And finally, to Alexa and Kate:  with the families that you come from, there is no hope of tiny butts or thighs in your future.  But that's OK!!!  You have two of the cutest butts I have ever seen in my life!!!!  But we have to keep it classy so don't ever expect to see any kind of skinny jeans in our house.  Ever.

Bird Season, Bitches!!!!!

It all started with a bird. 

Actually, no.  That’s not true.  It really all started with the people around me being terrified of birds and some of their fear rubbing off on me.  I’m trying not to be too easily influenced, but they make logical points.  My friend, Maria, used to drive me to school every day during my first two years of high school.  I specifically remember us driving down Taft street by Rotary Park (where there is a shit ton of electrical wires and therefore, a shit ton of birds) (Can I please insert here that I love the phrase “shit ton”!  I know that it’s a fad phrase but I really feel that it is very descriptive in an almost nondescriptive way.  When people say it, I don’t necessarily picture a ton of shit, but I immediately think ‘oh crap, that’s a lot of _____ (fill in the blank of what you’re talking about)’).  I got side tracked.  OK, driving down Taft Street, lots of birds on wires.  Now picture Maria screaming “ROLL UP THE WINDOWS!!!! THEY’RE GONNA FLY IN THE CAR AND ATTACK US!!!!!”  And then the two of us cranking up the windows as fast as we can because those birds did look like they wanted to peck at two little teenagers.  Oh, and when I said “crank”, I did mean that it was a car that had manual crank windows.  You know, the kind where you had to use both hands and put all of your body weight into it?  I’m just trying to paint you a picture here.  So there was that.  Plus, my sister is pretty terrified of birds.  And she makes equally good points about attacks and pecking.  Plus, birds have feathers.  And beaks.  And scrawny legs…never trust anything with scrawny legs.  So, pretty much, my dislike of birds is a learned behavior.

At work, we have a break room area that contains our lockers, a table and chairs, refrigerator, a bathroom, and a storage cabinet thing.  Everything gets piled up in there, including any holiday decorations.  About a year and a half ago, I was getting my lunch out of the refrigerator, I turned around and there was this big, nasty (fake) crow perched up on top of the cabinet, looking at me. Totally creeped me out.  I swear that the thing was not there the night before and it must have turned to watch me.  What do I do?  I made it my mission to move the crow in a different location every time that I worked to try to creep out other people as well.  At first, I tried to be discreet about it.  I put it on top of the fridge, inside the cabinet, on top of the lockers.  Then I started to get a bit more obnoxious by putting it on the window sill, on the table and on the counter by the sink.  Pretty soon, my friends Denise and Maureen joined in the fun and they moved it to my favorite location which was on a cabinet in the bathroom positioned perfectly so that when you were washing your hands, if you looked into the mirror, it was just over your shoulder staring back at you. Genius!  This went on for several weeks when suddenly, the bird was gone. Someone (I’m pretty sure I know who, but that person shall remain nameless here) apparently was offended by our treatment of the bird and decided enough was enough.  Well.  Apparently, that person did not know who she was dealing with because when the one big bird disappeared, three little birds promptly took its place.  J  There have been birds attached to telephones, birds on car door handles and birds swinging on the insides of lockers (to name a few of my favorites).  When I came back from maternity leave, there was a note, a rice krispie treat, a pepsi and a bird waiting for me on the counter of the nurses’ station. 

About two months ago, Maureen got me two little birds from Hobby Lobby.  I had them in my locker because I kept on forgetting to take them home.  Then, when I was in the waiting room with Kate for her 6 month check up, I get this text:

Denise: CPR needed!!!!!!!!

To which my response was: OMG that is fantastic!!!! I love how the other two are looking at it too.  They're like 'what the hell!  Someone's laid out!'

And then: Ok so after looking at it further, I have decided that the bird on the pumpkin is all like "well shit, now we have to do something about this" and the one in the back is saying "I'm not looking! In not looking! Maybe if I don't see it, I can just quietly walk away!"

Then, a few weeks ago, Denise and Maureen came over to my house and we had a crafting day to make creepy bird wreaths.

The latest part of the bird saga is this little beauty: 

 It’s like one of those pens at the doctors’ office with the huge flowers attached to it…except it’s a bird.  And it’s in attack position.  And it’s perched in a handmade play dough penholder that says simply ‘BEWARE.’  Really, what more could you ask for?  Also, please notice the equally creepy (and equally fake) trach baby on the counter across the nurses’ station.  Now, would you believe that the bird pen disappeared too?!  I may or may not be going to Target (and possibly, Michaels) after work today.  And I also may or may not be donating certain Halloween decorations to the unit.  Possibly some small, black, winged creatures that have black glitter on them.  And do you know why?  Because it’s bird season, bitches!!!!

...but her farts gave her away.

Did you ever notice that your own poop doesn't smell as bad as anyone else's poop?  Yeah, now I have you thinking!  You know that you can sit in the bathroom for a half hour with no problem but as soon as you walk in right after someone else is done...BAM! You're choking.  I find that the same is true for my girls.  I mean, I don't think their poop smells all that bad.  Nick, on the other hand, can't even handle himself half the time when Alexa has a pull-up poop.


Speaking of poop.  Alexa and I have had many recent poop conversations.  These are just some of my favorites:


Alexa: "I'm gonna flush the potty like this (still sitting on the potty, she leaned back to flush), that's how Mommy does it when she poops". 

Me: "Yes.  That's what we call a courtesy flush"

Alexa: "Courtesy flush?"

Me: "Yuppers"


Me: (after Alexa had one small poop in the potty) "Why don't you sit there a little bit longer.  I think you still might have some poop in your bottom.  Poops like to hang out together, there's rarely just one little one.  They usually have friends."

Alexa: "Friends?"

Me: "Yeah. Unless you have a really healthy poop.  Then it comes out as one big one.  All the friends are holding hands"

Alexa: (a few days later, as I am sitting on the toilet) "Mommy, your poops are all holding hands?"

Me: "Yuppers"


Sorry, it's been awhile since I've had a poop related post and I feel like I need to fill some kind of poop post quota.  Because as my grandpa always said "She thinks her shit don't stink..."

Baby Kate!

I just realized that I never put up any pictures of Baby Kate.  Yes, we actually call her "Baby Kate".  And by we, I mean everyone in this world other than Nick.  He calls her Katelyn because he thinks that she is not going to know what her real name is if we call her Kate.  The whole Baby Kate thing started because that's what I called her when speaking about her to Alexa when I was pregnant and then she was born and it just stuck.  For some reason, it's completely appropriate for her.  I don't know why.  So, anyway, here's a bunch of pictures that I took as I was trying to be a photographer.  Some of them my mom edited.  It's pretty obvious which ones those are.  There are a couple of Alexa thrown in there (obviously).  Lexi started off kind of jealous but she's turning out to be a very good big sister...most of the time.  Baby Kate is super cute, she's always happy.  Unless she's trying to sleep.  Then she screams.  A lot.  The kid hates to sleep, which is not good for my psyche.  She likes to take cat naps during the day and then she likes to wake up at least every three to four hours at night.  I haven't slept more than 4 hours straight in the past 5.5 months.  Alexa was such a champion sleeper.  By the time she was this age, she was sleeping 12 hours through the night without waking at all.  I used to think to myself that all these women saying that they are so exhausted after having a baby are nuts!  They must either be really bad at this parenting thing, or I was really good at it!  Well, that was when I had a sleeper and now that I have a non-sleeper, I would give anything for 8 straight hours of sleep.  This Q4hr wake up crap is getting really old.  I feel like I have tried everything, but if anyone has any advice on how to get a baby to sleep for a long time, I'll take it.  The lack of sleep is really starting to turn me into a not so nice person...in life.

My Tooth Story

I'm going to try to write on my blog more, which I know is something I say all the time.  But this time I'm really going to do it.  Really.  My goal is to be a full time, self employed blogger.  So somebody better start following me and writing comments on this thing!  :)  As part of all this, I tried to get past my horrible computer skills and update the look of my blog and try to figure out what different things I can do with it.  I found that I can have a heading.  A one sentence type of thing that describes me and my blog.  And so, after much deliberation, I decided on "South Florida girl moves to the 'country' where shirts, shoes and a full set of teeth are all optional."  I thought it was pretty witty and funny.  Not gonna lie, I was proud of myself.  Until I realized that I am totally starting to fit in here...I officially do not have a full set of teeth.

When I was pregnant with Kate, my body was generally against me.  In addition to the bitchiness, I had headaches, I felt exhausted all the time, Katelyn enjoyed using my kidneys as a punching bag, I randomly got the worst UTI in history and, oh yeah, my tooth fell out.  Let's all take a moment to reflect on that last statement.  OK, done.  And yes, you read it correctly.  My tooth actually fell out.  (Well, I suppose that's a slight exaggeration.  A quarter of one of my molars fell out.  But still!!!  That's a quarter of a very large tooth!)  It was like those dreams people have about loosing their teeth, except it was real.  And it sucked.  A lot.

It happened on a Saturday night.  That morning, my tooth started hurting and progressively got more annoying as the day went on.  After Alexa went to bed, I was sitting on the couch with Nick, telling him how I was probably going to make an appointment at the dentist on Monday because this crazy ache in my tooth just won't go away.  He suggested that I do a good flossing because maybe I got a piece of food stuck or something.  That sounded like a good suggestion and it made sense that it might be a piece of food because of how suddenly it came on.  We finished watching our show and got up to go to bed.  (I'm going to add in some stuff that is slightly off topic here, but I think it really highlights the ridiculousness of the whole situation)  We both walked into the bathroom.  Nick peed while I started brushing my teeth.  (Stay with me here)  He flushed the toilet (I swear, he just peed) and it started overflowing!  Poop water started spilling over the edge of the toilet seat!  He runs to get dog towels from our bedroom, comes back in and realizes that poop water is now backing up into the bathtub.  At this point, I had finished brushing my teeth and was trying to help him.  In an effort to keep me away from the strange poop juice that was coming up and also to try to alleviate my tooth pain (and my complaining), he told me to just floss and let him clean up.  So I started flossing as he ran to another bathroom to get the plunger.  It was at that moment, surrounded by the stench of feces that I tried to floss at the site of my pain and off popped a huge chunk of my tooth.  At first I didn't even know what it was.  I assumed it was the piece of food that was stuck.  Until I realized how big it was and there was no way something that big could have been stuck between my teeth.  I spit it out and looked in my mouth to a gaping hole where one of my molars should be.  It was horrific.  And I swear, I didn't even floss that hard.  The only up side was that it didn't hurt anymore.  So, of course Nick walked back into the bathroom, plunger in hand, to me standing there with my mouth open, holding my tooth, tears streaming down my face, in utter shock.  I said "my tooth fell out!" and he laughed because really, at that moment, not much else could have gone wrong.

The toilet thing ended up being a plumbing problem as opposed to a septic tank problem.  George and Carolyn happened to be up here for Antonio's birthday party, so Nick, George, Kim and Steve spent all day Sunday fixing the plumbing.  By Sunday evening, the toilet was working and there was no more poop water in my bathtub.  My tooth, on the other hand, required a bit more intervention.  I discovered that there is no emergency dentist in Tallahassee.  (apparently there are emergency dentists, just not here)  I lived with a hole in my tooth until Monday when I was able to see someone and then discovered that I had to have a root canal.  I'm still not entirely sure what that entails.  I just know that, because I was pregnant, they had to give me a different kind of numbing medication, which obviously doesn't work as well.  And of course I have super long tooth roots that curve which made the whole root canal process even longer.  And, again because of the pregnancy, I had to wait until after Kate was born to get the final crown (I think that's what it's called) made and put on.  Oh, did I mention that I despise the dentist, can not stand anyone touching my teeth and have had a (traumatic) previous experience with numbing medicine not working during a filling?  I think it's safe to say that this whole experience made my anxiety level go up exponentially.

I have decided that I'm going to leave my blog heading the way it is, knowing that as the years go on, I am becoming less out of place up here.  (At least I get my teeth fixed when they fall out)  I don't really feel like I belong in south Florida anymore either,  so maybe it's a good thing.  One thing is for sure...I will NOT develop a country accent!

Udderly Delicious!

So, I was feeling sorry for myself the other night because I had to work full time.  I like my job and I would want to work sometimes, just not full time.  I was irritated because I have to leave for work at 5:45am and I don't get home until 8 (or later) which is way after Alexa goes to bed, and sometimes after even Kate goes to bed.  I hadn't seen Alexa in more than 3 days and my only interaction with Kate was a bath and night time feed.  Anyway, I was moping around the kitchen trying to brainstorm ideas to make money from home and wishing that I had a marketable skill when I saw a Target ad on the counter advertising for a sale on all breastfeeding supplies.  (Oh yeah! I think you know where this is going now!)  So I thought to myself, 'That's what makes me (semi)unique...I produce milk!  Wouldn't it be hilarious if I sold my breast milk online.'  I walked into my bedroom still chuckling to myself and decided, just out of sheer curiosity, to try to google it.  OMG, you guys, there is a whole breast milk buying/selling world out there!  It's like the breast milk black market.  Except it's legal.  I think.  Legal or illegal, it's kind of creepy.

People post ads for their milk.  It's like the classifieds of human dairy products.  And not only are they describing (in detail) their milk, they are, in a way, selling themselves too.  And they sell it by the ounce!  Examples: "1000+ ounces of creamy fresh or frozen breast milk from healthy mother" (I want to know if the 'fresh' stuff is still warm), "Healthy, fatty milk for your little one", "Human dairy queen...", "Fit, healthy, Ivy-league educated mom selling...", and my personal favorite: "Fresh BM. Local sales only"  And that, folks, is why acronyms are generally bad.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm all about the nursing with Katelyn, more so than I was with Alexa.  But if I wasn't able to nurse her for any reason, formula it would be!  She gets 2 bottles of formula a day as it is anyway.  I mean, I understand that people want what's best for their baby.  And the people selling it are just trying to make some extra cash from their overflow (no pun intended) supplies.  Some of these women must be making thousands of dollars!  I checked, and there's about 200 ounces of milk in my freezer right now.  I might just sell off whatever Kate doesn't drink.  I could market my milk as "Udderly Delicious!"

What's For Dinner?

Disclaimer: Nick is a really good husband and father. Seriously. He feeds, bathes and puts Alexa to bed at least three times a week because I am at work or teaching and he's done a fantastic job so far when he's been at home by himself with both girls when I'm working on a weekend. He even vacuumed the house last night as I was bathing Lexi. OK, I had to put that out there first. On to my story.

I'm not a good cook. I can follow a recipe just fine but I'm definitely not one of those people who just throws stuff together to form culinary awesomeness. It's just not something that I enjoy. Dinner never falls very high on my list of priorities and, if it were just me and Alexa eating, she'd have a peanut butter sandwich, I'd have a bowl of dry cereal and everyone would be happy. Now, Nick is different when it comes to dinner. He would love to have a four course meal every night, which obviously doesn't happen in our house...ever. So, when I was pregnant with Katelyn, one of the things that just irked me to no end was Nick coming home from work (at 4:00...plenty of time left for group decision about what to eat) and asking what was for dinner. At that point, having spent my day entertaining Alexa, cleaning, getting ready for the baby (and usually sleeping), the 'what's for dinner' question just really made me want to inflict some major pain. Or hide in a closet. (Or the more likely scenario: hiding in a closet while dreaming about inflicting pain) I imagined that Nick wanted to come home to me wearing a dress, heels and an apron, preparing this fantastic meal while Alexa was quietly sitting at the table teaching herself calculus. Reality was, obviously, just about the opposite. It was a good day when I was able to even take a shower and Alexa was usually running around like a little crazy girl, and occasionally naked (Alexa, not me. It's really hard to keep clothes on that kid!).

Shortly before having the baby, I decided that I had had enough. I realized that he was just asking an innocent question, so I had to come up with a way to answer that question without getting anxious, frazzled and mad. My solution: monthly meal plans. For the past three months, I have made a calendar with dinner planned out for each day. At the beginning of the month, we have one big Publix shopping trip and we only go back to the store half way through the month to get milk and fruit. Not only do we always know what's for dinner, we have saved a lot of money by staying away from the stores. Our meal calendars are posted in the laundry room and on the inside of a kitchen cabinet so everyone knows what's for dinner all the time.
So, Nick calls me at work the other day, from home, as he is standing in front of the refrigerator and as soon as I answer the phone he says "Hey, what's for dinner tonight?". Are you serious? I can't win.