And then a Hero comes along...

I am annoyed at my husband’s friend and his wife. I wouldn’t be getting into this at all except for the fact that I saw them last night and couldn’t be mean. I mean, I wanted to because I have the maturity level of a second grader, but I couldn’t do it! What is wrong with me? Where did Holly go?

I probably have no business being annoyed, but I am, so there. Long story short, (Haha, I always say that and it’s never a shortened story, consider yourself warned.) this guy went to college with my husband, moved to Colorado together, I think they were even roommates for a while. My husband considered this guy one of his best friends until recently and rightly so. They have known each other for a long time, have very similar interests but this guy NEVER makes any effort to hang with Geoff. This couple lives about 20 minutes away and never bother to visit, EVER. They will not come to a birthday party, Christmas party, or any sort of event here because quite frankly, they never leave the vicinity of their neighborhood. WE always invite them to all sorts of things and will drive up to where they live just to have lunch. I mean, hello, a friendship is like sex, reciprocate! All of that is certainly going to get old, but the nail in the coffin was after we had Sawyer.

Geoff always wanted to be a daddy and couldn’t more elated when I told him I was pregnant. His friends know this. Sawyer was born five months ago and they did not come visit once. Not once! As annoyed as I am with them, if this chick pushed out a baby tomorrow, I would be there with gift in hand just to say Congrats. (That is why I am the bigger person here, right?!) A baby is a big deal, a life changing thing, an amazing experience and when our Russian neighbor lady who wears too much perfume can make an effort to come visit and say congrats, if my friends can fly half way across the country to say congrats, I think one of Geoff’s “best friends” can drive twenty minutes out of their way to say congratulations as well. BUT, they never did, ever. I know Geoff is hurt by the situation and because he is the man and not suppose to be hurt by anything, I stepped up as his wife and am pissed on his behalf. That’s right, I stepped up to the plate like a hero, pretty much I am a hero. Just call me hero. Pretty, beautiful hero.

I guess I wonder though if I have the right to be? This wife thing is new to me, I’m insanely protective of my family and if you hurt any of them, I will hate you, be sarcastic to your face, and call you ugly head to all my friends... well, that is what the second grader inside me wants to do, BUT, I couldn’t do it last night. I couldn’t do it. That is no hero in my books! I have another chance tonight and since my husband and I already worked it out that I got to drink some wine last night and he drove, that means, he gets to enjoy some beverages tonight and I drive home, which is just a wordy equation equaling out to me not saying anything ever. Maybe it is my place to be mad, but not ruin a friendship. Maybe I’m growing up. Maybe my Maturity level is at third grade now, which was one of my favorite grades anyway, but MAYBE you guys can help come up with something witty to say before I head off to this thing. Maybe I can get my mean back. Maybe I can flunk a maturity level. Maybe.

Don't forget your carry on... and your manners.

In honor of the holidays and the travel season, I thought I would post a little something I wrote a long time ago while I was working as a flight attendant. It's a little paper I think all travelers should read, date and sign before they enter two feet on any plane!

Consent Form to Fly


Its a plane not a spa so hold off on the toe nail clippings.

No, we are not looking at the size of your boyfriends penis buldge, we are checking to see if his seatbelt is fastened.

How do I know your bag wont fit? I pretty much live on these aircrafts, Im not saying it to get back at your mother, I'm telling you because your bag wont fit. Really.

Needing a bottle of water during take-off is not an emergency unless your shorts are on fire, so can you wait five minutes?!

Don't take the seatbelt sign serious and we will find the new knot on your head amusing.

Don't slam my bins! I don't go to your house and slam doors, or hide my gum under the arm rest of your chairs for that matter.

Masterbating in flight is not a compliment to anyone and a blanket does not make you invincible.


When my pilots step out of the flight deck to greet you or say goodbye, be respectfull, do the same. I'm super protective of my pilots, so when they stand next to me as you de-plane, look her or him in the eyes and say something, like nice flight perhaps. Its amazingly sad how little they recieve a compliment, a wave, recognition, or eye contact... Then tell me how pretty I am.


Wash your hands, don't want your germs.

No, your baby is not cute, when it is taking our snacks and smashing them into our floor, I don't care how blue their eyes are.

Most of your flight attendants have degrees, read more books in a month than the average American does in their life, and is in this job to travel, therefore well cultured. Don't treat us like idiots... Ask us a stupid question and we will reply with a stupid answer, just to see the look on your face.

When we warn you to watch your elbows and knees for the cart coming through the isle, don't complain when they get hit.

Will your bags make it? No! Always expect that and you will never be dissapointed.

Wheelchairs in Chicago OHare are like Leprachans and gold at the end of a rainbow...good luck!

I am not psychic. How am I suppose to know your entire gut can fold over the seatbelt? Lift it and show me the belt is worn "low and tight".

Your warm bag of barf left under your seat after a flight is not a welcoming suprise... Just let me know right away and I will properly disspose it, no surprises.

Oh yeah, I willed that thunderstorm in Chicago, fog in San Francisco, and snow in New York so they cancel your flight... Do you really think I control the weather? I want to get there just as bad as you, trust me, it's probably my one flight from home.


Sign here if you understand and comprehend all information and will not commit something as stupid or heinous as above.


X_________________________ Date:_____________ You are now welcome to board!

Marriage in a Nut Shell

Me while gagging: "Your farts haven't turned my stomach in a long time, but man, that last one really flipped it over!"

Geoff: "Really?" Kisses my forehead, "That's so sweet Baby!"

Easy Steamy

Mamma got a present, and NOT because I deserve one! I actually got it due to my lack of basic cooking skills. Yes, LACK of. That makes me a little sad to say. I feel like I worked hard to teach myself how to cook some decent meals. I can follow a recipe, I can make up my own and it usually comes out pretty good… or so I thought.



Confession: I burned steamed carrots. Isn’t it obvious that water becomes steam and the longer you steam, the more likely it will be that you need to STOP steaming, or ADD more water?! I know this, I DO know this. I know this when I think about it logically, but that was the problem, I wasn’t thinking logically. That, or just got too distracted. I get distracted very easily. One of my nicknames was Goldfish due to my lack of concentration, and ability to be distracted by just about anything, especially if it’s shiny or sparkly. Did I get distracted? I don’t remember! (Let’s not even talk about memory!) Point is, burnt carrots smell BAD and boy did I burn them! I smoked them and smoked carrots don’t make good baby food.

About two weeks ago, I decided it was time to feed you solids. Solids is by no means solid. In fact, it is the complete opposite of solid. No joke, a baby’s first solid should be of liquid consistency. Is liquid a solid?! No it is not! Maybe if information wasn’t so misleading, my mind wouldn’t have been so full of baby translations and I wouldn’t have burnt the carrots, but whatever.

So, I wanted to wait until you were about six months old before I started you on “solids” but I think at five months old you were more than ready. You bring everything to your mouth, especially beer bottles. We went out to dinner and all the adults enjoyed a beverage. You sat on my lap and fussed reaching for my beer. Once it was in your hands you opened your mouth and lowered the bottle until you mouth was at the opening and tried to tip it up so you could drink some! You were upset when we wouldn’t let you have a drink. Relax kid, your five months, not 21years and five months. You also started to get up a lot at night. Every 2 ½ hours to be exact just to eat. You were starving. Milk was no longer doing it. I was pretty sure you were ready for food and 100% sure I couldn’t wake up every 2 ½ hours for a month straight.

We started you on rice cereal and you loved it. You wanted more, you thought I wasn’t doing a good enough job of shoveling into your mouth and took it upon yourself to grab the spoon and rush it into your wide open mouth. You got it all over you, you held the mush in your hands and squished it through your fingers. I was all about it! See the food, smell the food, experience the texture of your food. Daddy came over and wiped your face. See, sometimes mom is the fun one! Anyway, you formed a rash. A rash on your face, your trunk around your eyes. I thought it was an intolerant reaction to the cereal. Aunt Jackie says that a reaction to cereal in the form of a rash is rare and most likely caused by some virus. Mommy and daddy did have a cold recently, but I still thought the safe bet was to stop the cereal. The rash stopped and I decided to move you on to better more tasty foods… carrots.

I decided to make you the carrots myself…

Home made baby food…

Steamed carrots are easy enough right?

Obviously that is where I went wrong. When Daddy mentioned something was burning, I was so sure it was something on the stove that we didn’t fully wipe off from dinner. I let the carrots cook longer. They were thick! It must take like 25 minutes right? Needless to say, we were left with a completely black pan, smoked carrots and a smell so bad that it took over 24 hours of airing out the house to get the smell out. Mommy’s new present??? A baby food maker, an obviously needed baby food maker and I love it!

And what present did you give us in return? I’ll leave you with an e-mail I sent to Daddy yesterday,

OMGOMGOMG!!!!

If I could send smells through the internet, I would send you Sawyers last diaper. SO, no need for prunes. Guess the carrots took their sweet time out and BOY did they come out! Holy Crap, I wish you saw this! I picked up Sawyer to see poop spewing out of his diaper and onto my hand. My first thought: Yay, poop! Babe, this was the most wretched smell yet and there was sooo much! It basically looked likeI spooned a cup of carrot puree into the diaper and added a drop or two of brown coloring.

Oh man it was bad! What a big boy!

Failure #1, the first of many.

So after committing myself to something, I realized that I set myself up for failure. This month my family is going on vacation. (Hallelujah... HALLLLLL e LUUUUU JaHHHH... is singing in my head as I type vacation, vacation, VACATION!!!) So, naturally, I WON'T be logging onto the internet during my vacation, vacation, VACATION! So, besides that week of sun, scuba diving, margaritas, I am going to try and write every day. Don't lash me.

Get ready for my verbal throw up... in the form of blogs.

Sawyer,

I’m not necessarily sure what this will be about. I think it will be about you, but then I think it might be about me. Maybe I’m feeling selfish. Thing is, I want to write more. I used to write all the time, not so secretly, I wanted to write a book. To tell you the truth, I think I had a somewhat adventurous life that people might want to hear about. Then again, maybe they don’t. All I know is that somewhere along the line, I learned that I liked to put words onto paper regarding what I was thinking, what I was feeling. In no way am I a poet, or a mush gushy writer, but when I have an opinion, it’s usually an uber intense strong one and I think I am usually able to get that point across on paper and sometimes in a humorous manner. I’m also not too shy when it comes to embarrassing myself. I can’t help but feel a little jealous when I read these really funny mommy blogs that are all popular, because the truth is, I want to be there too. I want to be a funny mommy blogger that people want to read, a blog people relate to. Really though, I don’t have much to say, like I already said too much long ago and am now running out of words. I want my words back!

It’s funny though, how I used to write about all kinds of crazy stuff, I have notebooks full of stories and now, every time I think about writing, all I want to do is tell the world about you. How awesome you are, how adorable you are, how annoying you are at times, how tiring you can be, how much you eat, how much you poop, how much you have changed my life and how much I love you. I guess you are the most important thing in my life, right up there with Daddy and Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Balls. Man, I just love you three so much!

I guess the point is, while reading some of those mom blogs, I learned that this month is National Blog Writing Month (Or something like that.). If you want to join in, you have to blog every day. Really, I didn’t go to the website, or do any sort of research at all because, well, I’m lazy. So, maybe you aren’t suppose to blog everyday, I don’t know what the rules are, but it challenged me to TRY and blog every day for the rest of this month. Lets see what happens. Lets see if I find my words. Lets see who I bore to death. November 5th…. Day one of my daily blogging adventure…

Oh, and here is my third love:

2 cups Oatmeal
½ cup P/B
½ cup honey
2 tbs. Almond milk (Cause Dairy is the devil)
Handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Mix together, roll into little balls and let sit for a few hours. No baking needed. Mmmm mmm good!


Your weird mom.

The other day Geoff looked at Sawyer and said, "I think he can be a baby model, you should look into baby models. He is so cute, he looks like a model." This is pretty funny if you know Geoff at all. Of course I feel the same way...

Dear Sawyer, 4 Months!

Someone is four months old!!! Four! Months! Old! WOW! In two more months you will be half a year old, and that just seems crazy to me. I know, you're thinking, good work mom, you can count, but you don’t know what it’s like to see yourself grow so fast! Maybe you do, but don’t care? I can’t believe I fall into the same ol’, same ol’, everyday, average mom who says time goes by fast. Time is going by sooooo fast! Geeze Sawyer, you’re mom is sooo just average. Dang it.

I realized this month how obsessed with your brain I am. I found a pretty good website (zerotothree.org) that has in depth scientific information about infant and child brain development. I can’t get enough of it. Your brain is pretty cool! Here is just a little from that site about synapses in your wrinkled brain:

Although all of the neurons in the cortex are produced before birth, they are poorly connected. In contrast to the brain stem and spinal cord, the cerebral cortex produces most of its synaptic connections after birth, in a massive burst of synapse formation known as the exuberant period. At its peak, the cerebral cortex creates an astonishing two million new synapses every second. With these new connections come a baby's many mental milestones, such as color vision, a pincer grasp, or a strong attachment to his parents.
By two years of age, a toddler's cerebral cortex contains well over a hundred trillion synapses. This period of synaptic exuberance varies in different parts of the cerebral cortex: it begins earlier in primary sensory regions, like the visual cortex or primary touch area of the cortex, while it takes off somewhat later in the temporal and frontal lobes, brain areas involved in higher cognitive and emotional functions. Nonetheless, the number of synapses remains at this peak, over-abundant level in all areas of the cerebral cortex throughout middle childhood (4-8 years of age). Beginning in the middle elementary school years and continuing until the end of adolescence, the number of synapses then gradually declines down to adult levels.

If not already, then soon, you will have more synapses going on than me or daddy… or any other adult for that matter. Pretty amazing huh?! A little too obsessed with your brain development, I took it upon myself to note where all the teacher resource stores are near here, and what toys are in your near future to foster your development. One day you are going to ask for a toy for the only purpose of it being fun. I hope by that time, you honed in on your persuasive speaking skills That, or got a job to pay for it yourself. Are you wishing you were born into another family yet? Haha, sucker!

More things that have gone on since I last wrote you? A lot I say! Beckham decided to join the world recently. Beckham is Daddy’s best friends baby and I’m pretty sure you guys will be friends. Well, I’m pretty sure you guys will have play dates, and you will steal his toys out of his hands because you are older, and probably be a little more aggressive, assertive and all that fun stuff I’m going to have to lovingly correct. But none the less, I’m sure you guys will be friends, especially when you guys get older. We also made friends with another couple who has a baby named Ethan. You are 2 months older than him and just had your first hang out time together last night. Aren’t you the popular tike?

Besides popularity, I have mentioned several times how strong you are, but you just have not been too interested in rolling over AT ALL. That is until the other week you were on your stomach doing your dreaded ‘tummy time’ when I noticed you were insanely close to rolling onto your back. I was soo excited! I ran literally 4 steps to grab the video camera, and when I turned around you were on your back! I’m with you ALL day and STILL manage to miss your milestones! That was the only time I have seen (or more correctly, not seen) you roll over. Today for the first time, you were pretty close to going from back to stomach. Your bottom half was rolled over, but you had no idea how to get your arms to cooperate. You were stalled for quite some time trying to figure it all out, and after about 5 minutes, you weren’t going to take it anymore. Mommy had to come to the rescue. I’m hoping soon you will have the rolling down, but when it comes to really being mobile, I will take a stab at it and say you will try to walk before you try to crawl. That’s just a guess, but I’m pretty damn smart, so… yeah, you will be a walkin man.

This doesn’t have anything to do with you directly, but things that have gone on this month in general… A shark in Virginia got pregnant without a male to do his thing. She’s like the Virgin Mary Chick shark! I have already had discussions about Utah, their state bird, and Mormons with you, now let me just say, I think Virginia and West Virginia are two of the weirder States, and the whole shark thing happening there proves I am pretty much always right. Obama and McCain are at it, and soon we will vote for president in I think, one of the most passionate elections I have been alive through. Mommy got to see Barrack at her gym, isn’t mommy cool? Colorado drivers still suck. I found out one year ago this month that I had something brewing in my uterus. What else? Probably a lot, but the import part here is the, I’m usually right part, and the, I’m cool part… chew on that with your gums!

So, this letter is getting a little off track. More than anything, I want to say I love you even when you are crying. I love you even when you puke milk on me just as we are rushing out the door. I love you when you poop out your diaper and only manage to get it on my white tank top. All of which has happened numerous times this month! Really though, I just love you!

Happy four months kiddo!

Dear Sawyer, 3 Months!!! You reap what you sew.

My Boy!

Dear Sawyer:

I am not good at making things. I'm not "crafty". I don't scrapbook, I don't knit, I'm not the person with the awesome personalized present. Speaking of presents, I suck at picking them out. Presents make me nervous. I'm only good at getting presents for people when there is no reason to give them a present. THAT is when you will get your best present, when the time isn't right. I can't pick those things out under pressure, no, no good at that. No, nooo good at crafty things. I wanted to start sewing. I wanted to sew you cool onsies out of old concert tee shirts. I took a sewing class with my friend and you know what came out of it? A pocket. A freaken pocket. I talked up this pocket to daddy just because I was excited to make something out of nothing, but really, it's pretty bad. You don't want me to make you a pocket! I will say however, I did the best damn job making you. You are sooo cute and perfect! I can't believe I had anything to do with something that turned out so awesome!

Here are some of your updates…

Lately your thing is to drool. You drool and drool and drool. I was thinking about bringing you to places suffering from a drought because your drool can fill not just pools but aqueducts. In 24 hours you will have a drought-ridden town flooded. How about that for your first public service opportunity? Soon after the drool thing came the discovery of your hands. HANDS! Connected to YOUR body! Hands that YOU move yourself! How is that for amazing?! These hands you decided are so great you will see if you can fit each one whole into your mouth. You first did this when we were at the grocery store! I started exclaiming loudly, "Yes, those are YOUR hands! Do you love them? Do they taste good? HANDS! YAY!" I was so excited by your find, I couldn't help but show it, while everyone in the produce section just kinda looked at me. What do I care, you found HANDS!!! As I type this, you are playing under this little floor mat play thing. You just swatted the lion so hard, he flipped around the bar that he is hanging from, and you got a kick out of it. I did too. Man, I love you and your hands!

You are also strong! You are the strongest little thing I have seen. You love to stand! You can stand for hours on end if I let you. You hold on to one finger from each of my hands and just stand up. You do this hip shaking move to keep your balance, but you are strong. Daddy now has you stand on the palm of his hand and with your awesome standing capabilities and him moving has hand back and forth to make up for your hip shaking, you just balance there. No one holding on to your hands! You stand there with your mouth open wide, looking out in the crowd like you are doing some trick on the promenade waiting for your fans to throw money in a jar. Now that I think of it, maybe it's time you start pulling your weight around here, I'll go get you a money jar!

Every day gets better with you. You become more fun, have more personality, more tricks up your sleeve, and more poop in your diaper. Speaking of poop, you think yours is sooo funny. Whenever I open your diaper and yell "GROSS," or "NASTY", or, "That came out of YOU? SICK!", you just crack up. You also think it's funny when you fart loud, or when I say I see your buggers. You are such a boy! My favorite thing though is that we are reading every day. You like books! You already have a favorite. You love this fabric book that makes crackling noises, it has a mirror and a little bear that squeaks. You open the pages and put the page up close to your face, like you are an old man who forgot his glasses in the car. You read that one a few times a day. Our routine is, I read you a few books in the morning and one or two before bedtime. You lay in the crib and smile as I read to you. I hope that contributes to some awesome dreams! You also really like Dr. Seuss, but who doesn't???

Sawyer, you and daddy are the best things that have ever happened to me. I feel soo lucky to be his wife and your mommy. You guys are better than all the pockets in the world!!!

Your mamma!