Twas The Season...

Ok, I know I've been completely MIA since before the holidays, but for good reason. The holidays are rough.  It's only now, 3 days into February, that I feel fully recovered from the Hellidays. I'm going to do a little holiday recap even though nobody probably wants to hear about it. Too bad.

There are so many ridiculous things about being a parent during holiday season.

Last year, we had a tiny snugly baby. We didn't decorate the house...we were too tired. We put up a tree, but only had a few ornaments on it. We were too delirious to do much else. We fumbled through Christmas day while I shoved my boob in Henry's mouth every hour and the holidays were over. 

Oh wait, we did manage to go to the mall and have our picture taken with Santa. Cute, right? 

   

I now know the holidays will never be the same. 

For some reason, once you have a kid, you get this overwhelming feeling that you have to force them to love santa, decorate your tree like it's the midway at a damn carnival, and buy them all sorts of crazy shit they will forget about a month later. Well here are some pictures that represent our holidays:

Henry hated Santa. Probably not surprising to most, but surprising to us as he has never showed the least bit of fear when being held by strangers. He was most likely scared of his two parents who were jumping up and down smiling and squealing while trying to get a good picture. 

Take a look at our tree. Pathetic. The bottom third is empty for obvious reasons. We decorated it normally...until our one year old decided to lick the glitter ornaments and cough like at cat hacking up a hairball. Instead of proceeding to watch him taste test each orb, we just completely emptied the bottom third.

We all know how I feel about toys. Needless to say we didn't get Henry much since we knew he'd be overindulged by his grandparents. Of the things he did get, though, just about all of been forgotten aside from his radio flyer car. He freaking loves that thing and plays with it for hours a day. Totally worth the money his grandma spent on it...oh wait...aside from the fact that he climbs all over it and gets stuck....and then cries until I rescue him. Fun times. 

 

And then there are those obvious adorable things about having a one year old during the holidays.

But.

That's not what this blog is about now is it? ;)

Stumped.

Alright, here's a real doozy for you guys. What do you do when your wiggly 1 year old gets a little cut that won't stop bleeding?

Henry cut himself somehow (I'm thinking paper cut) this morning. I noticed a few drops of blood on the floor and started playing the game "what orifice is bleeding now?" I looked in his mouth, nose, and then noticed he had some blood on his hands. His finger was bleeding.

It didn't look bad, so I just used a little wet washcloth and wiped it off. I thought that was that, but as usual, it wasn't. This little tiny cut on Henry's finger didn't stop bleeding, and Henry didn't stop moving. He was walking around as usual touching everything...which in turn got little drops of blood all over the place. Ugh.

I put a little Elmo band-aid on the cut, hoping to catch the blood and avoid getting in all over the walls. Henry thought this was hilarious. He laughed at his little band-aid and sucked on it until he got it off...and then proceeded to wipe blood all over my pants and a stuffed animal he had just received.

Then, I tried a glove. I don't know if this makes me weird or not, but I figured if I put a winter glove on his hand, it would at least contain the blood until it stopped bleeding. Well obviously that was just wishful thinking, because he pulled it right off.

Sooo I spend the next 45 minutes chasing him around with a wet washcloth wiping his finger every 10 seconds. Awesome.

So that got me to thinking...what do mommies do when there's blood and it doesn't affect your kid enough to get them to sit still? Do you let your kid bleed all over everything? Or somehow contain them until it stops bleeding? I need a better game plan for next time!

Long Week

Henry has been wicked sick this past week hence me being MIA. He has been coughing, sniffling, and forcing me to change my shirt every 15 minutes when it gets soaked with snot and tears. Poor kid.

We took him to the doctor who informed us he is actually cutting his 18 month molars, too.

Woof.

So he finally seems to be feeling a little bit better tonight, so once he went down to sleep (and we were sure he wasn't going wake up screaming 5 minutes later), I poured myself a nice big glass of red wine.

Thank God the toy designers at B. Toys made their play cube multi-functional.

Mama earned this drink.

Happy Survival Day!

Happy Day to my Husband and I for surviving one year of Hurricane Henry.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to the wildest kid I know!

Eating.

Let's get one thing straight. I'm not going to win the "Mom of the Year" award this year. Or next. Or probably ever. So I'm just going to put this out there, and hope that I don't regret typing it.

I think watching my kid eat is f@*#ing disgusting.

I remember how excited I was when at Henry's 4 month appointment the doctor told us that we could go ahead and try rice cereal and purees. I'm not sure what I expected feeding to be like, but I'm pretty sure I didn't think it would totally freak me out.

Food on spoon > baby opens mouth > food into mouth > swallow > repeat

Not
So
Much


Read the rest HERE!!

Toys.

Let's talk toys, shall we?

Toys suck, the end. Thanks for stopping by.




Ok, ok, I'll elaborate.

I think toys are a sadistic gimmic that companies use to play into a moms fragile emotional state.

You go to Buy Buy Baby, you browse Amazon, or you have a playdate, and you are constantly bombarded with new and awesome toys that your kid has to have in order to reach his milestones, learn his ABCs by 10 months, and become a professional athlete. Barf.

I hate toys, but I feel like a bad mommy that my kid doesn't have an entire basement full of plastic garbage that he can climb all over and act like a maniac. And I KNOW that I don't even have it bad, yet. Henry can't even ask for the toys he wants.

With Henry's first birthday a week away and Christmas shortly after that, I've been feeling especially weak and fragile when I see toys that promise to entertain my kid for 7 hours a day...especially since I start daydreaming about being able to paint my nails and take a freaking shower while a toy entertains my kid.

Here's why I'm staying strong and not giving in to holiday toy maddness:

1. Henry has never had a toy or played with a toy at a friends house that he has payed attention to for more than 11.4 seconds. Why am I going to spend $104.89 on a light up 3-toed sloth that blows balls out of its ears. I'm not. And that's creepy.
2. Henry's current favorite toys are his dresser drawers, the dishwasher, paper, and my iPhone. Let's see... That's 1 point for ikea, 1 point for GE, 1 point for paper, 1 point for Apple, and 0 points for any toy company.
3. I'm cheap. I have yet to spend more than $15 on any toy Henry has and I think $50 dollars in his college fund will make him smarter than a $50 dollar musical bear that can say my kids name and favorite food. (yeah, I'm talking about you scout)
4. I'm cheap and smart. Tom and I started shopping for Henry's birthday and Christmas at garage sales this past summer. We spent about $30 total for both events and got him loads of books and high quality wooden toys that won't light up rainbow vomit and make my ears bleed. Oh, and we won't have to fill 5 garbage bags with packaging, and Tom won't have to spend the next 6 weeks putting things together. Bonus.
5. I'm highly susceptible to catchy tunes so if we bought many singing toys, I would end up humming the tunes all day and night and then I'd have no friends.

Basically, I'm not against my kid having toys, but I do think it's easy to go overboard (I've seen it first hand), and I think toy companies know that moms want the best for their kids and therefore target us with the promise of a happier, smarter kid if only we buy their toys.

I think this holiday season the score will be Toys-0, Stephanie-1.

The Age When It's Getting Fun!

I think I've adjusted very well to husbanding and fatherhood from my former life well over two years ago!!! I've loved Henry since the day he was born and didn't have any issues with identities and roles as other dads I may have heard of. I don't ignore Stef and Henry, I don't look for excuses to get away other than my weekly soccer game, and I hurry home every day after work so I have as much time to play with the fam before Henry's bed time. What is so cool now is that being around the corner from Henry's first birthday, as a dad, the little dude becomes more and more fun by the day. ( Except restaurants, they are miserable and no longer fun for anyone unless we are going with Grandma and Grandpa and they can deal with Hurricane Restaurant Henry, very closely related to Demon Baby )
Now that Henry is mobile, talkative, knows how to play hide and seek, and loves to chase, play time is no longer trying to get him to pay attention to a creepy toy. We wrestled for the first time the other day and it was a blast!
A buddy of mine from school who began his journey with fatherhood a year or so before me keyed me in on the fact that a baby spends the first several months of his life bonding with mommy, but when they become playful there is a chance for dad to join in the fun!
So, I relish in it and love it. He is a blast and I can't wait for Captain Henry's Pirate Birthday Party!