Justin aka The Incredible Hulk

Either my son is angry and is turning into The Incredible Hulk, or he got a hold of a green marker. Thankfully he found a green marker his sister left out without the lid on it and decided it would make a great pacifier.

If he was turning into The Incredible Hulk, I'd have to run from my house screaming and crying because I'm deathly afraid of The Hulk. I remember when I was little my brother would watch The Incredible Hulk TV show and I would cower behind the couch in fear. Sorry, little bit of a tangent there.

I think today wasn't a particularly good "mommy day" because this morning I caught him playing (actually splashing) in the toilet. If only he knew what goes on in there, I think he'd find somewhere else to play! Now if he would have discovered the fun of splashing in the toilet AFTER he turned himself green I wouldn't of had to clean up any mess!

I think my kids hate me.

Really I do, I know you're thinking to yourself, "But look at how adorable those two are, they must be the most well behaved kids on the planet!" Oh you are so wrong. They are good for anybody else whose name isn't mom, mommy, ma or mama.

Justin screams, cries or a combination of both most days. While Dylan pushes Justin, hits him, yells at me, doesn't listen, screams, cries and hits Justin some more. I have about 20 minutes a day when they are well behaved for me and that's usually while they are eating. Then the minute anybody else gets home they are standing at the door with perfect posture, hands behind their backs, faces clean, big smiles on their faces with their halos on nice and tight.

I fight my way through the week knowing that reinforcements will be arriving for the weekend. I'll no longer be locked in the solitary of my house and I'll finally get out into the world of the living. Well Friday I got out of the house only for Dylan's dance class. Which really didn't count because I was still locked inside a building with screaming kids who weren't listening. Then Bryan went golfing and alas I was alone again.

Saturday we were set to go to Sam's Club, not exciting I know, but I was getting out of the house! Or so I thought, Justin was throwing a fit in the car so Bryan actually turned the car around and said he wasn't going to the store with him. So guess who gets stuck at home again ME! Bryan will get moments of behavior like that from the kids, but whenever he watches them he always tells me they were, "So good."

And whenever anybody else watches the kids for me they are perfect. Actually whenver I'm not around at all they are perfect. Either the kids hate me, or there's a giant conspiracy going on between the kids and everyone else in my life trying to make me a complete nut job by the time I'm 30!

It's offical, we've got a climber!

Somehow I've made it through my entire parenting career; 2 years, 10 months, 1 week & 4 days without having experienced a climber. Today at 11 months Justin accomplished what his sister has never thought to do.

I was picking up the breakfast dishes when I heard squealing and clapping. When I turn to look I expect to see him going after his favorite target, the TV. But no I see him on top of his sister's Princess table as happy as can be. So what do I do, I grab the camera of course! You'll have to excuse the almost chopped off head and blurriness, somebody was trying to find the quickest way off the table!

It's not so bad!

Normally I'm not an advocate for doing any kind of physical activity that will get my heart pumping to fast. A few weeks ago my thoughts on this changed. I was chasing Dylan around the house and got winded after about oh a minute or two, I'm not a Dr. or anything, but I have a feeling that's not good! To be honest I've gotten a little lazy over the last few year, I know shocking!

Well last week we started taking the kids and dogs for a walk/run in the park across the street. It's actually been kinda fun, don't tell anybody I said that, because I'll deny it to the bitter end. It's mostly a walk, but I've noticed I've been feeling better the last week. I'm not as tired during the day, but I still hate mornings. I don't think I'll ever be a morning person.

The best thing about this whole workout thing is I get to go buy some new running shoes and some really cute workout clothes. Any excuse to shop!

Complete and total failure

I've done everything I could to avoid this day. The day my daughter becomes obsessed with "Dora the Explorer." Leave her home with Daddy for one afternoon and he just blows my entire plan to crap.

I have nothing personal against Dora, Boots, her backpack or her map with the totally unoriginal song. I just find the show a little annoying (okay a lot annoying) and I guess I get a little irritated that whenever I'm looking for a backpack for my daughter the only ones they seem to sell have Dora's face plastered all over them.

Yes I know the show is "educational," but it doesn't mean that I have to like it one bit. Oh well, I'm sure this isn't the first show she'll watch that I'll cringe every time it's on. I'll just have to live with her running around the house telling the dog and her little brother: "Swiper no swiping!"

And wouldn't you know who just happened to walk by the computer and see this picture of Dora now all I can hear is "Mommy I want to watch Dora! Dora mommy, Dora!"

Future Road Rager of America

So here's what went on in the car on a recent shopping trip with my mom.

Mom: "Why are these people driving so slow?"
Me: "I don't know, it's so frustrating, maybe they're afraid they're going to damage their shiny new 1980 piece of sh*t."
Dylan: "Come on lady drive! Green means go!"


That entire day whenever we were in the car my little back seat road rager would yell at the other cars one of the following: "Come on learn drive! Go lady or go man! Faster people!"

Now I just have to teach her to flip people off from the back seat and we'll be all set! Nothing like having a 2 year old road rager. Well she does live in California, I'm just teaching her defensive driving at an early age!

Well this is new!

Just when you think you've got the little terrors figured out they go and throw a monkey wrench into your smooth running operation. Justin wasn't a particularly good sleeper until very recently. He used to wake up multiple times a night, would only sleep until about 6 am and he'd take about three 30 minutes naps a day. Actually for me those didn't even qualify as a nap, they were more like a tease of the quietness I thought I'd never have again.

Well after much manipulation and plan tweaking I finally have a happy sleeper, or so I thought. Three nights ago Justin started something I've never seen before from the likes of him; a full fledged temper tantrum when I tried to put him to bed. Now this kid can throw a fit to rival the worst of the worst terrible two year old, but he's always happily gone to bed. So that night I let him cry it out, I know I'm an awful mother, but he eventually stopped (it only lasted about 15 minutes tops).

I just figured he was having an off night, so the next night when he again started freaking out I wondered what was going on. I picked him up, sang him a mean rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," and tried to plop him back into his crib. I say tried, because, suddenly the kid developed super human strength. He wrapped his legs around my waist and held onto my arms like I was about to drop him into a pit full of snakes. When I pried one of his hands loose he decided the best way to stay out of the crib was to take a firm hold onto mommy's pony tail! OUCH, I think I have a bald spot now on the side of my head! Again I let him cry himself to sleep and again I know I'm a horrible mother.

Tonight, what do you freaking know, another tantrum at bedtime. I figured maybe he didn't like last nights song so I decided on a little diddy called "A, B, C, D, Dinosaur" but he didn't like that either. Hmmm, maybe it's my singing voice? After an extra set of hugs and kisses, and telling him how much I love him, I managed to get him into bed without losing anymore hair. He did cry again, but it lasted only a few minutes this time.

Maybe the kid was challenging me to some sort of bedtime battle, who knows! Well if he was I clearly won, so sorry Justin! Final score: Mommy 3 Justin 0!

When it rains it pours...this edition: pee & puke

Okay really it's not as gross as the title sounds, well unless you're me, then it's pretty freaking disgusting.

This morning about 3 am I hear: "Mommy, o Mommy" over the baby monitor. I stumble upstairs into Dylan & Justin's room and I'm almost knocked over by a very disgusting smell. I just figure Justin pooped, so I decide I'll change him after I get Dylan taken care of.

I pick Dylan up out of her bed only to discover that she's soaking wet. Could it be sweat? My nose does a little investigating and discovers it's not sweat but pee. She's not nighttime potty trained yet so she still wears a pull-up. Now I'm not a pull-up expert, but I was under the impression that a night time pull-up meant it worked DURING THE NIGHT! Can somebody please explain to me how a kid can be covered in pee and yet the pull-up is completely dry?

So I quietly change her jammies trying not to awaken the beast in other bed. Once she's changed I take her down stairs to my bed and then go back up to deal with the poop extravaganza. I bring a flashlight with me to sneak a peak into his diaper, hey I didn't want to wake the kid up by turning on the light. To my surprise there's not a single pebble of poop in his diaper. I'm stumped, what could that disgusting smell possibly be?

At that exact moment Justin lifts his head, looks at me and smiles. I reach down onto his blanket to grab his pacifier for him, only to discover that it wasn't his pacifier, but a pile of VOMIT! I'm not talking about cute little baby spit up, I'm talking chunks here people! I soon discover there are little landmines of puke throughout his crib. So I began the thankless mommy task of cleaning up his puke while trying to not talk or play with him. I know I can't take him out of his crib to change the sheets, because if I do that will be the point of no return, and he'll never go back to sleep. So after I cleaned him up I laid his comforter down on top of the dirty sheet and then laid him down to go back to sleep.

Oh I can hear you judging me. How could she not change his sheet? Why didn't she bring him into her bed? I'll tell you why! First, I couldn't change his sheets because he would have been wide awake wanting to play. So are any of you willing to come over and play with him at 3 am while I sleep? Didn't think so. Second, Dylan was already in our bed. The last time all four of us slept in our bed it went a little something like this. I was hanging onto the edge of the bed for dear life by my toes and finger nails, and Bryan was smashed up against the wall like a squished bug on a windshield! All the while my precious babies snoozed away in the middle of the bed.

This morning I really got to survey the damage. You think puke is disgusting at 3 am, it doesn't get any prettier by the time morning rolls around!

Has anybody seen my dignity?

I'm pretty sure I left it at checkout lane #2 in Target. So if anybody happens by there and sees my dignity lying there trampled over, would you please pick it up and mail it to me. Oh to hell with it, you can just keep it.

Tonight I went to go to Target because there are a few things I needed to pick up for Justin's Birthday invitations. Plus I'll take any excuse to go to Target. Bryan's working late so I brought my mom with me, you know, safety in numbers. With two of us watching the kids we can play man-to-man defense rather than zone (I have to say thank you to Uncle F for the most brilliant sports/parenting analogy I've ever heard in my entire life). Yeah so much for that idea.

We should have turned around 2 seconds after we pulled out of the driveway because that's when the first of Justin's many tantrums began. I figured he wanted out of the car and he'd be fine once we were at Target...nope and nope. He was having such a fit in the store I took him out of the cart and held him, but he still kept crying. No not crying, screaming! I don't know what his problem was. It could have been a number of things: teething, tired, terrible twos (even though he's not even 1 yet) or he's just a crybaby mama's boy.

Now it wouldn't be so bad if he was the only one acting up, but Dylan was a NIGHTMARE! She's usually so well behaved, I don't know what happened to her. She was running around the store almost getting knocked out by shopping carts. She was running through all the aisles touching everything and telling me "Wait a minute I looking at this." I was trying to find something and she decided it was the perfect time to start playing red light green light. When we didn't stop for the red light she started screaming at us in the middle of the aisle!

The coup de grace of the night was standing in line to checkout. I asked my mom to take Justin to the car since he was still crying. I was trying to pay for my 3 measly items and Dylan decided that was the perfect time to practice her shopping cart driving abilities! Well she needs to work on that a little because she nearly ran over the lady standing behind me in line! Yes ladies and gentleman tonight I was "that mom" with "those kids."

I must be a glutton for punishment though because after Target I still went over to Michaels to get the things I couldn't find at Target!

Goodbye flawless baby skin...

...hello toddler legs full of: bumps, bruises, scrapes and scars! Yesterday I noticed Justin's first bruise on his shin. He's been getting braver with trying to walk but he's falling down a lot! He has a new bruise or scratch on his head every day, this is the first time I've noticed anything on his little legs. I'm going to miss looking at his perfect little legs, but I'm excited for all the fun things he's going to be doing that go along with those bumps, bruises, scrapes and scars!

Nerd Alert!

It's no secret to those who know and love me that I'm probably the biggest nerd you'll ever meet. I love reading especially Shakespeare, my favorite class in college was geology. I thought about changing my major to geology, but while I love science courses, in general I'm a horrible student. I'm proud to admit I miss watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman on Saturday Nights with my mom. And I also love to dance. You may be asking yourself "well what's so nerdy about that?" Well lets just say last weekend while attending a family members wedding I was busting out with the greatest dance moves of the 80s. What can I say, I enjoy my 80s dance moves.

Okay, onto the reason for this post. Saturday night hubby and I were supposed to go out for dinner ALONE (I couldn't believe it, 2 hours all to ourselves)! Well plans changed about 20 minutes before we left and we ended up going out with a group of friends for S's birthday. After dinner they all wanted to go out to a bar. Now I'm not much of a bar fan, never have been. I hate trying to shout my conversation to the person who's sitting right in front of my face. And as I said, my dance moves are in serious need of updating, so I don't do clubs either. Bryan is about as big of a fan as the bars as I am, but since it was S's birthday we decided to go with them to have one drink.

So we walk the few blocks to the bar and there's already a line outside. We're standing there for 10 minutes not moving, I look at my watch and think to myself: Wow it's getting late, it's 9:30 (nerd). I turn to Bryan and ask him if he thinks we should go get our car and move over closer to the bar. We had to park in valet, because there wasn't anywhere to park by the restaurant and we were told we needed to pick up our keys by 10:00. We tell our friends we're going to get our car and we'll be back. I figure as slow as the line is moving to get into this "Too Cool Bar" we'll be back before they even get in.

So we get back to get our keys and "Broseph" is totally grateful so he can go home and do whatever it is "Broseph" surfer boys do *wink *wink. We drive back to the bar and start cheering and patting ourselves on the back when we get a totally awesome parking spot (nerds). When walking back up to the bar we saw the line had doubled in length and the last of our group had just gone inside. I swear Bryan and I were pouting in line, we couldn't believe our luck at having to stand in this line, while everybody else was "stoked" to be waiting to get into the "Too Cool Bar".

After intense negotiations with the cool kids on the inside, us nerds decided we were going to go home. We drove home trying to make ourselves feel better saying, "We'd probably still be standing in line and that they're probably not having any fun." My nerdy husband and I were nice and tucked into bed by 10:45 on a Saturday night. I love being a nerd!

Mommy Moment

Today I had one of those moments that validates everything for me, a mommy moment. For me a mommy moment is when something happens and the thought hits me like a ton of bricks; "I'm a mommy and these are my kids!" Over the nearly three years I've been a mom I've had my share of these moments. When I held them in my arms for the first time, when the first look into your eyes and the first time the say "mommy".

This morning when Dylan was getting ready for her first dance class I had another mommy moment.

I just looked at her in her pink tights and leotard and thought; that's my baby girl. When I was pregnant with her I always imagined this day, her first day of dance, and now it's here! Gotta love those mommy moments!

How rude!

To all my fellow 80's TV loving friends please say the title as Stephanie from "Full House" used to.

Okay so yesterday we went to Temecula to say goodbye to hubby's family after all the wedding hoopla. Of course there's a million bazillion of them there so I'm ready for the kids to start freaking out.

I swear I need an extra set of legs and arms at family gatherings because the kids are always hanging off me....they don't want anything to do with daddy (probably because it's his family so they think secretly he's one of them).

Dylan was throwing a fit because she wanted me to hold her, but I couldn't because Justin is practicing his walking skills. Also there is a pool in his Aunt's backyard so the ratio in that situation jumps to 1 on 1! And of course Justin was being his usual mamma's boy self, crying whenever I wasn't holding him or whenever I walked past him.

Towards the end of the night I was in the house letting him crawl around (I had to forgo swimming because he didn't want any part of being corralled in his playpen) while Dylan & hubby were living the good life swimming in the pool. It was way past his bedtime and he was really getting sick of these people, and I can't say I blame him. He tried to pull himself up on my legs, missed and smacked his head on my knee. Not really a big deal, but he was tired so his reaction let everyone know this was a code red injury, which then led to a Justin sized temper tantrum.

Some distant relative of Bryan's (who I've only met twice in my life) says, "Jeez what's wrong with those kids?" Oh I don't know lady, maybe the fact you guys are up in his face (as you all have been for the last week), and you Italians are a scary bunch, always with you kissing and hugging! Leave my kids alone already, they don't want to talk to you, if they did they would come up to you and say "hi" or something. When I first started dating hubby his family freaked me out. Everybody was hugging and kissing me the first time I met them. We've been together for 8 years now & I still get creeped out whenever I have to kiss Nana. So I know how my kids feel, I'm sure in 8 years or so they'll be okay with all of this.

I couldn't believe she said that, I thought that was so rude! I would have said some smart remark to her, but I'm pretty sure her husband has ties to the mafia, so I just let it slide. Come on my kids are still babies, give them a break!

Renegade Flower Girl

Actually she wasn't. Dylan was the most perfect, most beautiful flower girl I've ever seen. We were all so nervous before hand but she did great! She was supposed to walk down with the ring bearer, but we decided she'd walk with her Auntie Manda instead. I knew it was the wrong order, but I knew that walking with Auntie would be the only way she'd get down that aisle. The family members were under strict instructions to not talk with her until after the ceremony was over (if you read my previous post you'll know why). I left Auntie with a little bribery tool (sweedish fish) and went and took my seat.
Finally it was time to start, I listen for screaming...none. Then I see my baby girl walking with her Auntie (eating sweedish fish) and I started crying:



There was a moment of hesitation when she got to the end of the seats, but with Auntie holding her hand she went. She saw us sitting right on the end and sat with us for the ceremony. In all it was very uneventful (thank goodness)! I'm so proud of her, I can only imagine how frightening that was for a 2 year old.



The true bratty Dylan made an appearance during the reception so a call was made to grandma and she came and saved the day.

What a joke!

Last night was the Rehearsal Dinner for a family members wedding in which Dylan will be the flower girl. Lets just say everything went fantastic! Yeah right, it was such a freaking nightmare.
Dylan fell asleep in the car on the ride over, so she wasn't too thrilled when she woke up. Of course we get to the ceremony site and everybody starts crowding in her face and she starts freaking out. And you would think they would go away when she starts screaming and crying...oh no! Some people must think when she starts crying it really means, "please come stick your big ugly grape right in my face some more and keep on talking." No you jackasses, it's a two year olds way of saying, "Leave me the f**k alone!"

So she didn't make it down the aisle during practice, there was lots of screaming and tears (even more than I'd tried to prepare myself for). She almost made it one time until she rounded the corner and saw all of the people who'd just got done pissing her off standing there staring at her. After all the excitement wore off we took her back outside later to practice more and she actually did it, even holding the ring bearers hand. We have a couple plans of attack lined up, one including me walking/dragging her down the aisle (which I'm not even in the wedding so I could see the excitement on the brides face when we suggested that one).

So I was nervous before about tonight, now I'm going insane. I think tonight I'll be drinking some liquid courage for both of us before hand.

Little ears

You'd think after being a parent for almost 3 years now I'd know that little ears are always listening. Yeah, I still haven't learned a thing. My mom and I were driving yesterday with the little ones in the back seat of course, when the following conversation took place:

Mom: "That's a big dog!"
Me: "And he's taking an even bigger dump!"
Dylan: "Where's the dump? I want to see dump!"

My mom and I both just started cracking up! Oh well she's repeated much worse than that!

Plan Q

Getting Justin on a normal sleep pattern has been a freaking nightmare. He slept like an angel for the first 3 weeks of his life and then after that it's all been downhill from there.

At first he'd wake up multiple times for feedings and when we finally got that straightened out, he'd wake up for only one feeding but then he'd stay up for an hour or two. Eventually that one worked itself out, but then he started waking up earlier and earlier every day.

At first I hoped it would work itself out, of course it didn't so I needed to get creative. We tried keeping him up past his self imposed bedtime of 6:30 or 7pm, yeah that worked great. We kept him up until 9 and he'd still get up between 6 & 7am. Naptime has always been a joke he'll take up to 3 naps a day, and they only last for about 45 minutes each! I tried cutting out his morning nap so he'd take only one long nap in the afternoon. After two days of screaming for his morning nap I finally caved and gave him his morning nap. So I thought maybe I'd keep him up longer so his afternoon nap would run later in the day so he'd be able to stay awake later than 7pm. Again that didn't work either. His nap was about an hour now, but he'd still wake up at the ass crack of dawn. Finally, I decided screw it, I'll just let him sleep whenever he wants. I'm just going to have to get used to waking up before the sun everyday for the rest of my life.

That's when Plan Q popped into my brilliant mind. I thought maybe he wasn't sleeping long in the morning was because it was too bright in his room with the sun starting to come up. And I also thought that could be the reason he would take 2-3 naps that only lasted about 45 min each, it was just too damn bright in his room with the sun. There are mini blinds in the room but those are about as effective as keeping out sunlight as they would be for stopping bullets. So I got very creative found a bunch of blankets and hung them up in front of the windows.

Hoping that these would actually work I put him down for his afternoon nap and he slept for almost 3 hours. And again yesterday his nap lasted 3 hours! Since he took such great naps he's been a much happier baby and he's been able to stay up until 8pm. The best news of all though (are you ready, I hope you're sitting down), yesterday morning he slept until 8, which is unheard of in this house. And right now it is 8:45 and he's still sleeping! Which that's so incridble I think I'm going to go out and buy a lottery ticket and really press my luck!

I hope Plan Q actually works because I'm quickly running out of letters in the alphabet, next I'm going to have to move to the Greek alphabet.

Recipe for disaster

Here's a little warning for all you parents out there. If you find your little one in the mist of a mild constipation battle it's not a good idea to feed him a very fiberlicious diet for two days and put him in his jumperoo. I don't know if it was the gravitational pull of the jumperoo + the fiberlicious diet, but whatever the equation it equalled poop being shot up his back and one very happy baby!

I didn't think I looked that bad!

Last night after we took the kids to the park for some energy draining fun before bed, we stopped at the gas station to get gas in the car. In my house you can't get gas without getting a scratch-off lotto ticket. That day we had a $6 winner to redeem, so in I went to get more scratchers.
I was leaning over debating what scratchers I wanted to try my luck at this time, when over my shoulder I hear:
"You're seriously making me think about buying a lotto ticket now."
I turn around and kinda chuckle because it's one of the dumbest pickup lines I've ever heard in my life. The guy is okay looking, but a total Broseph (hubby & my little pet name for SoCal surfer boys). As a compeltly exhausted (feeling and looking) Mom the fact that somebody takes time out of their day to hit on me I think I should alert the media.
Anyways when I turn around and look at him he says "Well maybe not." And he diverts his eyes really quick.
I take my scratchers and sulk out of the store. I get back in the car and tell hubby; "I just got hit on by a total Broseph, and I'm pretty sure he took it back after he looked at me."
He laughed and told me "You look hot, like always." At that moment I was instantly transported back in time to when I was 13 years old. Braces, frizzy hair, twig thin in my high water jeans standing, in my best friends yard as the object of my affection laughs in my face and tells me I'm too dorky looking to be his girlfriend. Who knew at 27 I could still feel like my former dorky self all over again.
I didn't think I looked that bad, I was wearing my usual tank top & jeans with my hair in a ponytail. Well I didn't have any makeup on so that could have been what frightened him. Maybe it's time I re-think my fashion choices. On the other hand screw it...I challenge you Broseph to get up at 6:00 am with a screaming 10 month old and a 2 year old with a serious attitude problem, chase them around the house, and let us see how gorgeous you look at the end of the day.