Mistake #1:  Handing over the entire bottle of sugar sprinkles to two-year-old elf helper. 

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Mistake #2: The first present the Play-Doh obsessed toddler opens is…Play-Doh. Attempts to get him to open other presents are then futile, and met with cries of, “NOOOOOoooo! Pi-doo! Pi-doo!”

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Mistake #3: Minutes after opening the beloved fuzzy, squishy sheep she totally spit up all over it.  How to wash?

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Mistake #4: Cheap, likely-made-in-China wrapping paper, printed with what surely is a mixture of toxic coloring and formaldehyde makes a cute, festive picture in baby’s mouth, but is likely not the wisest choice of chew toys.

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Mistake #5: Please note the wire poking up out of the toy, dangerously close to baby’s eye. It has since been removed with a combination of tugging, band-aids, and wire cutters. (The wire, the WIRE! NOT the eye.)

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Mistake #6:  These effing things were $30 and I AGONIZED over getting them because I thought that was WAAAAY too much.  But two months ago Alex played with them at gym class and I literally had to PRY them out of his sticky, clutching fingers when the class was over.  I reasoned that if I was going to splurge it would be at Christmas so I bought them.

“Pfft”, says Alex, “Bring on the Play-Doh.”  And also?  The new price on these plastic pieces of shit is $13.79.  (I’ve already voiced my complaint to Amazon.)

Number of cards sent: 67

Number of cards returned because I forgot to stamp them: 1 (so far)

Number of times Brett has asked if we sent a card to someone who sent us a card: 3

Number of times I have replied, “No, ‘we‘ did not, however I DID“: 3

Number of Christmas letters received: 4!  I love letters!

Number of cards received with inappropriate picture on it: 1

Number of presents Alex has opened that are not his: 4

Trips to WalMart in the last week to pick up one more thing I forgot: 5

Number of gifts purchased for family and friends: 1, 486

Number of gifts purchased for husband: ZERO

Number of hours left to shop after work and teaching yoga today: 2

Things I could have bought online if only I had thought of them EARLIER:  all

Number of times I am likely to curse other shoppers for waiting until the last minute and crowding up the mall getting in my way: infinite

Number of family members who have fallen ill since trip to petri dish in-laws at Thanksgiving:  ALL

Current number of family members ill: 2 (including me, which should count twice because WAAH)

Doctor visits scheduled in last three weeks to address illness: 4

Number I forgot about and missed: 1 (oops)

Prescriptions filled: 3 (how do muscle relaxers interact with sinus medication?  And martinis?  And antibiotics? Let’s find out!)

Number of festive holiday martinis made from vodka, V8 Pomegranate Blueberry juice and a splash of lime: countless and delicious

Number of times Alex has tried to drink festive holiday martini exclaiming, “JOOOSE!  JOOOOOOOSSSSE!”: 4

Number of times successful: 1, followed by a lip smacking, “MMMMMMmmmmm!”

Number of red stains on carpet: 1

Work accomplished while at work this week: none

Pants too tight from non-stop parade of miscellaneous carbohydrates mashed together with butter and sugar:  all

Inclinations to go to gym:  none

Snowflakes: not a one

Santas on my roof: pending

No, actually he is UN-trimming…

Today’s post was going to be about swearing at work but I think I need to do this one instead.  We’ll save that scintillating topic for next week.

From Miss, who got it from Red Lotus Mama - let’s spread some happy today:

Ten Things That Make Me Happy

1. Alex’s bedtime, when I turn off the light and he curls his body into mine and snuggles and rocks with me.  This is possibly the only time other than when he’s sleeping that he isn’t in constant motion.
2. Nuk noises, aka Maggie Simpson, with a baby smile around the nuk.
3. Getting home and into comfy clothes before 5pm.
4. Mid afternoon naps.  For me.  Although kid naps also make me happy.
5. Cupcakes.
6. Savasana.
7. The ten minutes after a chiropractor visit because it takes about that long for my ridiculously loose joints to slide right back out to where they’re not supposed to be.
8. Evening conversations with my husband.  Even if it’s about work or the washing machine, it’s the quiet connection that matters.
9. Kicking ass in a meeting or presentation, especially while wearing pointy ass kicking shoes.
10. Teaching a really great yoga class where the sequencing works and the energy in the room becomes a tangible, connecting force.
11. Gorgeous fall days with sun highlighting the leaves, enough of a chill that we can wear sweaters, and time to enjoy it.

What are yours?

The first charity rejected the futon and left it in our driveway because it had cat hair on it.  Not blood or pee stains or rips…cat hair.  Of course, now it’s covered with much worse from sitting in the garage for 2 months.

What happened to ‘beggars can’t be choosers’?  This is a local charity that routinely preempts my TV with telethons begging me for money!  I’m trying to help the kids!  Take my hairy futon!

Right?

Or am I the beggar in this case, pleading with them to take away some of my materialistic guilt over having too much stuff?

What I should have done was have a garage sale.  Except that I am too chicken or lazy to have a garage sale.  When I look over the inventory we’ve given away in the last three months, I could have made some serious coin if only I were willing to sit in my yard for an entire Saturday and haggle while watching strangers paw my stuff. 

Garage selling veterans have warned me that garage sale shoppers will show up at your house hours before the sale starts and pester you while you’re setting up, ask to use your bathroom, and generally act like people in Sam’s Club which I totally couldn’t handle.

So alas – furniture, clothing, luggage, home decor - you name it and we’ve given it away. 

My main shopping vices are home stuff, clothes, baby stuff, and organizational stuff.  You see the correlation right?

Therefore, my new shopping policy is this - before purchasing something it has to fit one of the following criteria:

• Home decor must have a home in my house before it leaves the store.  There will be no renting of space on the kitchen counter or in the guest bedroom until I decide where it should live.
• Clothing and shoes must be able to pair with something I already own and/or replace another item.  That means if I can’t think of at least 3 outfits to wear it with, then something else in my closet must go to make room for the new guy.  Also I must really, really want it and be totally 100% (ref: reverse shopping).
• Baby stuff must have a reason, AND be on sale.  Good reasons do not include, “But look how cute it is!”
• Organizational type crates and boxes and drawer sorters must have a pre-determined location and a pile of stuff that is waiting to go in it.  There will be no purchases made with a vague notion that if I just get those toys or papers sorted then all of a sudden the house is clean and the baby is smiling and all is right with the world.

It will be hard, but as I said before, I am strong.  And overwhelmed by clutter.

After each of these, I want to explain…or make some excuse about why, why, why!  But you don’t care.  You have your list too, and just like mine each one is followed by a “but…”

I declare today the National Day I Won’t Feel Guilty About Anything. 

Unless I do something really bad, that would make me a bad person even if I had a good reason.  Right?  Is that OK?  OK.

It seems no matter how often I switch jobs, it never changes. Which means that millions of people experience this every day.  How did this movie not make more money than Star Wars?  Maybe some people just aren’t getting the irony, or it’s too painful to laugh at.

Am I the only person who finds it near impossible to get work done in an office environment?  Or is everyone else better at tuning it out?

As an example, today I was pulled from my work reverie by:

• the dude in the cube next to me tap dancing to tunes on his iPod.  This is normally better in the morning because he listens to podcasts.  In the afternoon he sits over there and taps his feet and drums his fingers on the desk to tunes that NO ONE ELSE CAN HEAR.  Augghh!  I can’t think!  It’s like he’s drumming on my brain!  Few things are as distracting and annoying to me as tapping, making me want to throw my shoe over the cube wall at you.
•  personal cell phones ringing with everything from “Back in Black” to “Dancing in September” (oh oh o-oh ah oowah), followed by intensely personal conversation that must be conducted without lifting your ass out of your chair and taking it outside
• the helpdesk guy who is trying to fix my old computer by re-installing something for the eighth time asking, “Heather – you over there?  Can you come over here and log in?”
• the guy with a cold who is snorting – literally snorting – in the worst possible way.  The really gross way that is usually followed by the grossest of all mouth sounds – the hock.  As in chhhhhaaaaawwwwwkkk…
• the girl who answers the phone exactly like Nina from Office Space – “Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking…Just a moment…”
• the general antsy-ness to go get a SNACK, check my feed reader, pee, whatever

I can knock out something in less than an hour at home that takes 3 or 4 hours at my desk.

What is it about my grey cube walls closing in on me that make it impossible to focus?

pregnancy and I
we do not get on so well
heartburn – it burns me 

 Things I Forgot About Pregnancy That I Am Just Now Remembering:

• If you spill coffee on yourself, it doesn’t just go in your lap.  It gives you an awesome stain in the shape of Florida on your huge boobs and a South American, or at least Chile-shaped stain on your big belly.  (Although come to think of it, maybe this one also applies to potbellied men.  Justice!)
• Maternity clothes that fit one week will not fit you the next.
• Constantly having to pee.
• Constant hunger followed by…
• Omnipotent heartburn.
• Not being able to cross your legs and being forced to sit like a man with your knees apart.  I can still cross, but when I had to pick up my leg and move it the other day a little bell went off that said “Ding ding! Enjoy it while you can!“
• Jealous envy of new spring clothes.  So pretty!  So frilly!  Because you can’t wear frills or fun prints.  You wear black, because it’s slimming.  Har har.
• The thirst for a summer margarita the first time the temperature gets above 70 degrees, which you won’t be partaking in.
• Sushi…see previous.
• Nesting.  I would have little flurries of cleaning and organizing, which culminated four days before Alex was born with me moving all the appliances in the laundry room including the fridge and washer so I could scrub the walls and woodwork and floors with bleach.  BLEACH!  This time I would definitely like to nest, but I’m so damn tired I clean out my purse instead.
• Did I mention heartburn?  I heart Tums.

New to this pregnancy:

• People constantly asking me if I read the study about coffee and pregnancy and miscarriages.  Yes, I fucking read it, and you are the 50th person to ask me and NO I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP COFFEE SO DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE.
• More fat in different places.

Oh all right.  I suppose I could stop whining.  There are a few good things, like…

• Baby kicks
• Decorating the nursery – in purple!
• Getting to dodge things “because you’re pregnant” that you don’t really want to do anyway
• Showers (not water – baby, duh)
• The miracle of new life?
• Umm…

Somebody remind me of some other good things.  If I open my mouth, heartburn flames will shoot out like a dragon, I swear.

 Haiku Friday is brought to you by Le Binky Bitch over at Playgroups Are No Place For Children.  Go play!

Alternate title #2…my brain is short circuiting.

I’ve often wrote about my penchant for list-making.  It occured to me this weekend that having a child changes not just what’s on the lists but the way you make lists.  (I know!  This is why you come here – for my brilliant insight!) 

Instead of one running list of things to do written neatly, now there are several.  Lots of times these lists feed each other, i.e. what to get at the grocery store feeds into what to feed the baby for dinner.  Things to do around the house, things to buy, stores to go to, blog entry topics. 

I generally have a list of items that need returning, often requiring a trip to the post office when these things were purchased in a bleary eyed frenzy of internet shopping. 

No more neat checkboxes either.  Back of an envelope, margin of a paystub – things to do are written anywhere and everywhere and corraled by my pocket or purse or taped on the wall.

Some of the things on the lists are directly related to the baby, but all preparation and planning of how to accomplish the things on the list changes, sometimes in an instant - according to the weather, baby’s mood, how tired I am, if I have an available babysitter daddy. 

So many times in the last year I have wished for a drive thru 7-11 or grocery store, because the number of times that Alex will happily go in and out of the carseat without complaint (read arching of the back and screaming while simultaneously trying to hit me in the face) is inversely proportional to how late in the day it is.  For example:  at say 1:30 or 2pm having just woken up from a nap, I can count on 3 or 4 quick stops.  As we move closer to 5pm, 1 exit/re-entry is a safer bet. 

(Digression:  Why did our society ever move away from being able to walk everywhere?)

Knowing I was going away this week and having at least 5 loads of laundry to do so I could pack, in addition to at least 2 or 3 things on all of the above mentioned lists, I had a plan.  A good plan.  I was going to make a bank deposit, return a faulty toaster oven but since we live and die by all things toasted this necessitated buying a new toaster oven first and I didn’t want the same brand which meant another store.  I also wanted to pick out paint colors so we could get our wish list done for the friend who is going to help us paint which means a trip to Home Depot to get swatches.  And oh yeah, before leaving I need to fit in as much baby time as possible to tide me over for 5 days.

Before I had a child, those few things would have meant nothing to me, Master of My Lists. 

This weekend, both Brett and I cracked from all the list making.  And the amusing part is we didn’t really get anything done.  Free time and energy are spent keeping an even keel, just maintaining things like bills and dishes.  Spending time playing together.    

On Saturday night, in the midst of the dishwasher running and clothes being washed, along with big plans for packing and cleaning and sorting after Alex went to bed – we lost power.  Old neighborhood, lots of trees, overhead powerlines – this is nothing new.  Sometimes the power will go out for no reason at all in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day.  But this time my internal brain surge protector failed too, and I sat there fuming in the darkness with a weakening flashlight, the plug pulled on my list-doing, until I forced myself to bed for lack of anything better to do.  It was 7:30pm.

 I’ve had to unsubscribe from a lot of the thrifty be-frugal blogs I used to enjoy reading.  Reading about what other people are doing that I’m not was killing me.  The competitive part of my brain couldn’t handle it. 

I can no longer fathom buying toiletries at the drugstore to save a few cents when I can get them in one trip at the grocery store.  I won’t go to 3 or 4 stores to shop around anymore – I consider the feeling of accomplishment from completing a list item priceless.  The logical, yogic part of my brain tells me not to race to get everything done – to enjoy the journey, and usually I do.  But the competitive part of my brain sometimes kicks the yogic part on it’s ass and shouts, “Ha ha!  Done!” like a teacher’s pet being the first to finish a pop quiz.

Almost under duress, I still clip coupons every weekend and then don’t ever use them.  They wither away in my coupon file as I watch things like shampoo and snack food come into the house, .50 or .75 more expensive than what we could have paid for it. 

Did I mention that I treat my blog reader like a list and I must read every entry in there?  Again, compulsion is killing me.

Now I’m in DC for the week, away from all my lists.  I have 96 hours (minus the corporate brainwashing from 8-4) of me time.  I hardly know where to start.  My urge is to make a list of all the things I want to do.  I’m resisting.

Tomorrow is the big reveal – the doctor’s appointment to find out if I’m having a boy or girl.  (Notice I could have just said the sex but this blog has been popping up in some weird google searches lately and I didn’t want to encourage the freaks.)

And of course I’m going to find out…what a ridiculous question!  Anyone who knows me AT ALL knows that I need to KNOW so I can PLAN and make LISTS and BUY STUFF.  Unless it’s a boy, then I really don’t need anything but thanks for asking. 

I don’t understand the mentality of people who don’t want to know.  Why have yellow when you could get pink or blue?  Why wait until Christmas when you could have it on Christmas eve (or Halloween)?

My sister in law didn’t find out before the birthday and she probably wasn’t any worse off.  She “wanted to be surprised.”

To that I say “Bah!”  I’ll still be surprised – just 4 months earlier!!  

Sure you don’t get the drama of the doctor exclaiming “It’s a …!”  But honestly, doesn’t the delivery room have enough drama?

Yes, I have considered that they can’t always tell, sometimes the doctor just can’t be sure. 

To that I also say “Bah!”  If the initial peek in utero doesn’t seem to be revealing what’s what, I will simply excuse myself and go do some handstands in the bathroom.  Trikonasana, bakasana flip kid, flip! All that yoga will come in handy, damnit.

So it’s your last chance to get in on the wager.  Tomorrow I’ll post in pink or blue.  To help you in your voting (Clinton?  Obama?)  I’ll give you some talking points that may or may not help you.

1. I kind of have a feeling it’s a girl.
2. The Chinese Conception Calendar says it’s a girl, TYVM and also says that if you are me and conceive any time at the age of 32 you are having “girl”.
3. My symptoms are mostly the same as the first time except worse, with the exception of a ridiculously bat-like sense of smell, bitchin’ carpal tunnel syndrome, and a more weight around the old shake shake.  (Hips and ass!  Come on people!)
4. No fitness instructor at the gym where I teach has given birth to a girl in three years of tracking (we are talking more than 10 babies here).  We theorize that all the testosterone somehow puts a hampering on the X and X linking up, thus overriding things like the Chinese Conception Calendar and genetic probability.
5. 68% of old wives tales point to girl.  (And just for the hell and humor of it, really, go look at the questions in this quiz.  Dramatic chest development=girl.  Fast growing hair on legs=boy.)

So there you go.  Which is it?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

I am happy to report that after crying that I would never be able to retire because I wouldn’t be able to find my retirement money, I’ve found a solution to my poor money management skillz.

After much tenacious research and sheer luck, I stumbled on this thing called a rollover account, for the express purpose of rolling over money! I know! And I don’t have to handle any paper checks! They do it FOR ME!

Also, did you know you can pay someone to manage your money for you? Yes? How come no one told me?

So now having started the ball (and the money) rolling into my new account with my new financial advisor managing it for me in times of market volatility (hee hee – see how smart I sound now?) I can sit back and just wait to be 60.

There’s your public service announcement for the day. Now some random thoughts:

1. How does Rachel Ray have her own television show? And magazine? Personally, I despise her and I cannot find one single person that likes her. I’ve recently started boycotting Wheat Thins because she is on the box. Are you out there RR fans? Tell me what is redeeming about her. She is right up there with Fergie on my list of celebs that just should not be.
2. I couldn’t stop staring at this picture of Amy Winehouse. You feel beautiful now, yes?
3. I’m sorry again, carpal tunnel syndrome sufferers. How many times do I have to apologize for thinking you were whining? Because now my wrists are visibly swollen and it is difficult to do the snaps on onesies and brush teeth and open jars. I repent!
4. I finally got my maternity clothes sorted and have started wearing them all the time, because they make me feel thin(ner). I know this won’t last so I need to enjoy it while I still can. Also, they seem to hide the developing belly better, maybe because they are all flow-y?
5. This morning, at 3am, I found myself extremely irritated with Alex who woke up screaming for no reason and refused to go back to sleep. After an hour, I finally got him back in his crib, and was equally disturbed when he started screaming again at 6am. Turns out, as reported by Brett after getting him dressed, that the poor kid had about 4 loads in his diaper. First, bad mommy! Bad! Second, what has happened to my bloodhound sense of smell? Could this be the flipping of the first to second trimester switch? If I haven’t had any breakdowns, or kicked in any doors, or exploded from the water retention by Monday I would say it may be the beginning of the best part of pregnancy.

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