On Saturday morning, I wrapped Noah up in two layers of outerwear, a musty-smelling scarf around my head, some vaguely Christmas-y paper around an awkwardly-shaped birthday present and headed out in the snow -- our first of the year -- to attend a preschooler's birthday party. Also our first of [...]
This is a sponsored post/contest from Shutterfly. They bought ads from me and want to give Free Stuff to you. Hooray! Everyone's a winner!*
*Well. Not "everyone." There will be only one winner. Everybody else? LOSERS.**
**Well. I think you're all winners, if that makes you feel any better.
Okay. So! It's' [...]
I should really know by now that the best way to fuck shit up is to put said shit in the form of a declarative sentence.
Scene: Like, Yesterday
Amy: You know? I NEVER get migraine headaches anymore. I haven't had one since I was pregnant. I am cured! Hooray for having [...]
Okay, so this is lame and mommy-indulgent and all of 19 seconds long, but I am uber-compelled to show off Ezra's newest (food-related, of course) trick:
What? He's BRILLIANT. SHUT UP.
[...]Scene: Car. Interior. Jason runs into store for essentials (wine, more wine) while Amy, Noah and Ezra wait in the car. It's a nice night, so he cuts the engine. The iPod goes silent.
Noah: No! No! I want the blue song! I need the blue song!
Amy, who less than like, [...]
Or, The Crazy-Eyed Peacock Octo-Turkey Bandit Finds a Home
So. Thanksgiving happened. Time to put the food where my braggy mouth is. Photos, confessions, and plenty o' dorkwads, ahoy!
If there's anything better than homemade piecrust, it's husbandmade homemade piecrust.
Noah's school was thoughtful enough to provide a timely craft this week, in the form of this tasteful, understated centerpiece:
I feel like it's either going to take a candy-colored shit on the table or hold us up at gunpoint for some stuffing.
***
Have I told you that [...]
1) Learning to properly blow one's own nose is, in fact, a highly advanced skill. If you are able to blow your own nose, congratulations! You've accomplished something with your life after all.
2) Even AFTER one has learned and is perfectly capable of blowing one's own nose, it may [...]
Oh hi, this is me, typing with no head. It blew off. Or up. I don't know. I don't remember. Your head is where you keep your memory. All I know is that one day I looked around and realized that I have an freaking buttload of deadlines and work [...]
I just got back from a parents' workshop thing at Noah's school. And it was a very useful workshop, really, about how to encourage fine and gross motor development through toys and play at home. I was especially pleased to learn that I can totally do all of Noah's Christmas [...]
Oh my God!
You guys!
In between all the craziness of...uh...sleeping and eating and taking like, THREE WHOLE SHOWERS IN FIVE DAYS, I completely forgot to tell you about the most exciting thing to happen to me ever in my whole life:
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
PHHHHHHFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTBBBBBB!
...is [...]
Listen, we're kind of busy over here today, but Zah really wanted to say hi.
HI.
HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.
I have four whole molars now. JELUS?
Oh, he also wanted to write a comment about [...]
Honestly, he's done it for as long as I can remember -- as soon as Noah had the vocabulary down, he described songs in terms of color. One day he asked for the "yellow song," and sobbed while I offered up track after incorrect track of Raffi and Dan Zanes, [...]
Hmm, okay. So yesterday's post was kind a of preachy "we're all fucked and going to die" thing, wasn't it? Let's change the subject. More topics and questions posed by you, the people:
From Danielle:
I remember you mentioned doing the 30 day shred a while ago.. How did that work out? Did [...]
Since you guys proposed SO MANY awesome topics yesterday Tuesday, I shall continue to mine them for awhile, or at least until something actually important happens in real life that requires a veryimportantblogupdate!, and no, I'm not counting last night's Tuesday night's all-night preschooler-puke-a-thon. (He's just fine now, of course, [...]
I've been sitting here all morning -- yes, actually physically here, in this virtual white space of my publishing platform, it's kind of like Tron -- trying to think of something to write about. And having a bit of trouble. I'm tired, I'm congested, I've just discovered that this "parent-teacher [...]
Update! I survived Swine Flu 2009. Or...Faux Swine Flu 2009, probably, since my fever never cranked up much past 99 degrees and I was feeling mostly human again by Sunday. (Although if you take my temperature on a perfectly healthy day you will likely get something like 96.6, so it's [...]
I appear to have, as Sundry put it, a touch of the Hamthrax. Or some kind of flu. I went to bed with the beginnings of what I assumed was a cold and woke up in the grips of some horrible, lung-hacking, breath-sucking, stomach-purging, body-aching, I'm-hot-no-I'm-cold-so-cold-oh-my-God-get-these-covers-OFF-ME type of illness.
It's [...]
FULL DISCLOSURE: These are not paid product reviews. If they were, I probably would not get paid, because I'm not sure toy companies appreciate being compared to monstrous black magic hell demons. The links are Amazon Associates, meaning if you decide to buy a monstrous black magic hell demon today, [...]
Much like last year, Noah refused to wear a costume to school. "NO COSTUME," he shrieked at the merest suggestion of dressing up. "JUST NOAH."
At one point he said he wanted to be the house from UP -- purposely choosing the most terrifying cinematic experience of the past [...]
I hit a terrible wall this past week. A metaphorical brick wall of...of MORE metaphors, like paralysis and drowning and suck and ass. SOLID BRICK ASS. Yeah, that pretty much sums everything up perfectly.
I missed a deadline, due to a simple flipping around of dates in my head. And missing [...]
Or, Stuff That Would Have Gone On Twitter If I Didn't Lose Interest After Reaching 141 Characters
Or, Stuff That's Been Sitting In My Drafts Folder Waiting For Me To Remember What The Hell I Was Talking About
Or, I Made You A Blog Entry, But It Sucks
***
We have three separate garbage/recycling [...]
Wow. Okay. So.
The When You Marry book thing (album? commentary? no, I think "thing" was just about right.) took quite a tour around Teh Interweb last week -- first on Sociological Images, which Kelly tells me means that I am Officially Important to Sociology and Stuff, [...]
So I figured something out, something that should really help my time-crunched, messed-up schedule quite a bit. I just need to multitask. Everything I do must serve a dual purpose. Like, I can put Swiffer cloths on the baby's knees, color my roots while I drive, teach my preschooler how [...]
Phone calls, voice mails, emails. Messages on Facebook and Twitter and blog comments. How's Noah? How's Noah doing? You haven't written much about Noah this month, about the schools, about how he's doing. So how's Noah doing?
When I was busy assembling his birthday video, I admit my jaw dropped a [...]
Ezra points at things now. He points at his reflection in the mirror, at me, at the bowl of chopped-up meatballs that I am not doling out fast enough, dammit. Jason walks into the room and point! Pointpointpoint! Today I asked him if he wanted [...]
Today the school bus dropped a small blondish-sort of child wearing a bright yellow backpack off at our doorstep. The child watched the bus drive off for as long as he could, waving goodbye before coming inside, casually slipping his backpack off of his shoulders. He then requested his most [...]
And then it brought him back again.
(Standard-sized preschooler-dwarfing backpack required by the school. He chose this one because of its color resemblance to YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHAT.)
He made puzzles and there was [...]
Oh good Lord, what a day.
We had our home visit this morning with a bunch of school district people, including Noah's teacher (who I recognized from her Facebook profile, which I felt all sneaky about until I remembered how spectacularly Google-able we all are, so you know what? I'm going [...]
Today! I accomplished nothing! Except the continued life-sustaining of two small reckless humans, the consumption of an entire package of American cheese slices, and a small handful of additions to the When You Marry gallery, covering chapters six and seven: Will Yours Be A Happy Marriage? and Wedding Plans. [...]
Oh. Hi! We went away there, for a little bit. Off on an exotic vacation, sampling the various regional delicacies of the Maryland shore. Like sand. And plastic beach toys.
I always go back and forth on the whole "tell Internet you're on vacation" vs. "tell Internet [...]
(Okay, first. Yes. I know I've been rather scan-happy lately. I'd apologize, except that it's actually been refreshing and more than a little necessary to take the occasional break from the Truman-Show-ness of all-super-personal-blogging, all-the-damn-time. Plus, the scanner is actually in the one room we've bothered to fully baby-proof, despite [...]
You know, we hear a lot about the toll motherhood can take on our careers. Maternity leave, sleep deprivation, wildly adjusted priorities, the havoc that a closed daycare or chronic ear infections can wreak on our attendance and dependability, and of course, there's often months and years spent out of [...]
AND THEN, on top of everything else, the baby weaned.
It's been a long time coming. It's been a long time happening. It ended this morning, officially, when I finally realized that it is time to stop trying for that Last Chance Nursing Session, Come On, Really? You're Really Done Here? [...]
He was wearing a hat.
I didn't recognize him at first. He doesn't wear hats, you see. We have one winter hat that he will wear without excessive protest -- a stupidly expensive handmade-in-Peru tiger hat that he picked out himself two years ago at Whole Foods, and I was so [...]
Apologies for not posting anything yesterday. And apologies for that apology, because I bet you didn't even notice and quite possibly your life continued on just fine despite my lack of posting. Regardless, I had an excuse: Terminal Brain Fog.
For example, I spent most of the day writing and rewriting [...]
Ah, the eternal blogging conundrum: tell the story NOW, or tell it WELL. You cannot do both, what with the lack of sleep and excess of brain matter slowly leaking out of your adrenaline-sapped skull, and death is not an option, though continuing to send out short hysterical ampersand-filled updates [...]
So...I'm always like, "Damn, Lileks, why don't you update the Gallery of Regrettable Food anymore?" And then I pick up some stupid old book at a used bookstore for a couple dollars and I'm like, "I should scan some of these pages and recipes and put them on the Internet! [...]
Jason and I spent our anniversary weekend in a hotel. A hotel 20 minutes away from our house. A hotel 20 minutes away from our children.
(The first time you read "20 minutes" you were probably all, "awww," and smiled ruefully about This Fucking Economy. Then you read the second [...]
It has been brought to my attention that reader Kari declared yesterday's post "the EXACT OPPOSITE of birth control," and that many, many of you agreed with that assessment.
Did you not read the part about the screaming? The terrible, terrible screaming? That he does in lieu of using anything [...]
So big. So, sooooo big.
(This one is pretty much 99.9999% Baby Photos Without A Point, so you may want to move along if that's not your thing.)
(Oh, I know it's your thing. I know.)
He spends most of his time like [...]
For reasons that I believe can go mostly undocumented, we thought the dog had salmonella on Saturday. We found stray mussel shells from a disastrously ambitious dinner scattered in the yard; puddles of sick scattered pretty much everywhere else. She's actually just fine, but I just wanted to mention [...]
(Spoiler Alert: No, There Isn't.)
(Also Known As: Inexplicable Photo Essay Number 7,895: In Which My Children Have Disastrously Short Careers As Male Models)
(Also Also Known As: Wow, Amy, You've Already Used An Ungodly Number Of Colons)
WHERE IS MY VITAMIN WATER?
DAY THREE, SATURDAY
Part One: They Vacuum Carpets, Don't They?
The baby's breakfast consisted of a couple handfuls of swag bag fruit puffs tossed on the floor of the hotel room.
Part Two: It Takes A Village
I once again attempted to attend an actual panel at the actual conference [...]
(Wow. So I originally planned to write about the entire conference in one post. HOURS AGO, I planned that. HOURS, I have been writing this and it really gets away from me at the end and I think I use the word "community" in a totally unironic sense and basically [...]
I need ideas for things to keep a nine-month-old baby amused on an airplane that:
1) fit into a small diaper bag
2) do not make a shitload of jangly beepy noise
3) do not resemble some kind of sex toy and/or rudimentary weapon, thus arising suspicion at security, causing me [...]
How is it July? Like, the end-ish of July? What happened to June? And May? And that little squishy baby I had? Did this giant one here eat him, just like he ate the dog kibble last night? Repeatedly? Because my babyproofing knowledge is limited to saying "NO!" and then [...]
FULL DISCLOSURE: I was not paid to do any of these reviews and I paid for all of these books with my own cash money, except for maybe one or two that I received as political campaign hush incentives
Christmas presents from my mom. Also, these are not actually [...]
Ezra had his nine-month well-baby appointment today, where it was brought to my attention that my baby is NINE FUCKING MONTHS OLD. I've now officially had him in my arms for as long as I had him in my womb.
And during those first nine months, Jason would often rub [...]
I still remember my little backyard kiddie pool. I'm guessing I had more than one, as this photo shows a square Raggedy Ann pool but I seem to remember a round one with a generic fish pattern on it -- though the designs [...]
About two weeks-ish ago, Kristen H commented that there's nothing like a pregnancy scare to REALLY help you figure out how you feel about having another baby.
When I missed my period this weekend, my feelings were something like: oh hell oh shit oh fuck oh minivan.
When I stopped [...]
THREE MOST AWESOMELY ESSENTIAL BABY TOYS
1) Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube, gift from sister
2) Spare toothbrushes, gift from dentist
3) OMSORG shoehorn, Ikea, 99 cents
TEN THINGS MY PRESCHOOLER WILL EAT
1) Pizza crust
2) Grilled cheese sandwich crust
3) Bread, but without the crust
4) Macaroni & cheese fromabox fromabox thatisnotfromaboxnoooo
5) Sticker Cheerios (Honey Nut [...]
Some days I can't think of a single thing worth writing about.
Some days, nouns and verbs and adjectives simply have nothing to add.
Why, hello! Sooooo very glad to be back in the land of working Internet access. Ours was shut off yesterday. Not "down," shut off. Along with our cable. Because we rule at life and money. RULE I SAY.
Our credit/debit card numbers were apparently "compromised" after a break-in at our bank, [...]
There was a time when my Monday posts almost always included a description of how I'd managed to injure myself over the weekend. I fell out of cabs, tripped on my stilettos, got drunk and fell down hills with staggering frequency. Such were the occupational hazards of being young and [...]
Conclusion to Amy Takes Her Foot-in-Mouth Show On the Road: Holy awkward SHITBALLS, people. She walked by me this morning and didn't even LOOK at me. And then picked her son up EARLY this afternoon. Probably just to avoid me, because I am sure I made that much of [...]
I remember Alexa once asked her readers when, exactly, babies grasp the concept of gravity. Or at least begin demonstrating a goddamn lick of SENSE. I admit I didn't read the response in the comments. Frankly, I was afraid the answer would be 42.
Ezra is...oh God, [...]
While waiting to pick Noah up from his first day of camp, another mother cheerfully cooed to Ezra and asked about my sling and lamented that her son would never let her use one, but sighed and said she hoped her next baby will be more accommodating. She patted her [...]
It occurred to me that I never wrote about our orientation night at Noah's summer camp from a couple weeks ago. Perhaps I initially decided that it was a boring topic that no one cared about. Perhaps I was more than likely right. But camp starts on Monday and I JUST finished [...]
Despite some threatening poses, Ezra is still not technically for-real crawling yet. He rolls, he scoots, he hurls his not-entirely-under-control torso towards the edges of furniture while I desperately lunge for his ankle like a clawless bear batting at a salmon, but he is definitely not yet achieving [...]
(Suck on THAT post title, TinyURL!)
Four solid days of zero Internet access. Once I got over the initial convulsions and hallucinations of trolls and unanswered important emails and OMG What Topics Are Trending On Twitter RIGHT NOW, the symptoms eventually settled into a vague itching [...]
...if only I didn't have to take my beloved rotten children with me.
(Alternate Title: My Own Unintentional Personal Testimony to Bad Mothering)
SCENE, YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, ABOUT 24 HOURS AFTER I WARNED JASON ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT PUTTING THE BABY TO BED IN JUST A DIAPER, AS [...]
Dear Well-Meaning People At Our Vet's Office,
I know. I KNOW. He LOOKS CUTE. He's all blondish and be-dimpled, dressed up exactly like a real live human being with the polo and the shorts and the sandals. He'll tell you his name and his dog's name and his baby brother's name [...]
After spending most of yesterday debating whether or not to reschedule an appointment for a professional family portrait session because Noah had a Raging Fever of Mystery, we decided to go ahead with it. Five minutes before we needed to leave the house, Ezra pitched headfirst off of our bed [...]
Today was the last day of preschool. A stunningly non-momentous occasion, made even more so by the facts that the end-of-year party already happened yesterday, and that our classroom's little fake diplomas had mysteriously gone missing. We were presented with a laminated piece of construction paper with a poem on [...]
This post is sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
I was in the ninth grade. It was early spring, a few weeks before Easter. My mom offered to take me out for lunch, and I, in my infinite gastronomical taste and sense of occasion, chose Taco Bell. We sat at a [...]
Here, I'll start. I call this one OH CRAP:
And this one is TURTLE STUCK UNDER THE COUCH WHEN IT ALL COMES TO NAUGHT:
And this one is JELUSY:
Now your turn. Be warned, these may be the [...]
Never let it be said that the Internet doesn't take a request for advice seriously. Serious Internet iz serious! Serious Internet iz in ur kitchen, comparing ur paint chipz!
In fact, since you guys took the assignment so seriously, I must apologize for setting y'all up for COLOR FAIL with [...]
Okay, so a lot of you demanded to see photos of the headband. A lot of you do not have much goin' on for you, these days, I'm guessin'. Anyway, I wasn't intentionally holding out on you, I just...um...haven't been washing my hair much this week, in order to [...]
It's been quite some time since we checked in on the Isle of Sodor, hasn't it? November 2007, if my archives are to be believed, which...I feel like they are lying. 2007? Really? No one is going to remember an entry from 2007 and all this time I [...]
Yeah, so. Shut up. We saw Rent AGAIN on Friday night. Again-again. Those tickets have been on my (non-working, asshole) refrigerator since CHRISTMAS, and I was excited. I got dressed up, complete with cleavage and a sparkly headband that I later decided looked more like [...]
A couple people inquired about the shoe box obstacle course I mentioned in yesterday's post. Yes, I was totally holding out on you. BEHOLD THE THRILLS:
Seven -- count 'em! -- SEVEN entire whole shoe boxes of various cheap-to-middling-quality shoe brands, each filled with wonder, [...]
I told Noah about the bus. A silly conversation to have with a kid who doesn't have the slightest grasp on the concept of time, but I told him anyway. "Next year, you'll ride the bus to school, and it will come right to our house!" I told him. He [...]
After the meeting, we all came home, had some lunch, played in the backyard, watched the refrigerator repairman shake his head discouragingly, paid for that head shaking with the for-emergencies-only credit card, and put the boys down for naps. Jason left to spend a [...]
One day, someday, although my money is on it not being today, I will learn to shut my stinking piehole and not tell the Internet things. This was published yesterday, and you'll notice that I ever-so-casually mentioned that yeah, neither of my kids have any food allergies! Isn't that [...]
Oh, hi. I spent the weekend stuck in the house with two feverish children. And my in-laws. And the two aforementioned feverish children, in case you missed that previous, uh, aforemention. That I mentioned. Afore.
That means you're in for a THRILLING post today. Seriously, buckle up, and try to [...]
So I didn't update yesterday because I couldn't think of anything to write about. Some half-formed possibilities included:
Wow, Gee Whiz, But Lots Of People Have Similar Problems With Their GPS Unit, Howza About That
Pooping On The Potty as a Diabolical Stalling Tactic
Didya Ever Go Too [...]
Here, I drew you a picture of our trip a new pediatrician this morning:
(Click to embiggen and like, really DRINK IN the artistry of those brushstrokes)
After regarding the mailbox for awhile and determining that it was, in fact, a standard blue United States Postal Service [...]
The report arrived on Thursday, all 20 pages of it. Twenty single-spaced pages to describe something I summed up in about eight paragraphs. I've never looked so concise! Or so predictably clueless, as I was so smug in my confidence that this evaluation held no surprises or new information, [...]
Look, I totally won a major award:
The rest of y'all can suck it, frankly. Or else face the VEINY HANDS OF COMPETITIVE FURY. RAWR.
This award came as a complete surprise, as I was the only mom at the preschool Mother's Day party to forget a [...]
The past 24 hours or so have not been my finest, parenting-wise. I know being sick and barraged by the unbelievable, unrelenting NEEDS and WANTS and WANTS-MISTAKEN-FOR-NEEDS of children* (who now outnumber you, huzzah!) can eventually make the most patient soul alive possibly crack into a million grumpy shrill pieces, [...]
Funny. There's nothing like a sore throat to suddenly change you from one of those "swine flu = overblown media creation = everybody should just shut the fuck up about the swine flu" people into one of those "desperately Googling swine flu symptoms = oh my god I'm totally dying [...]
"What are you DOING to him?" Jason asked.
"What?" I asked innocently, while adjusting the zoom on the camera. "I just wanted some pictures of those faces he makes when he does that thing -- when he cries the minute I walk away and stops [...]
Noah hands me his sippy cup. Strawberry seeds have stopped up the straw. "It's clobbed," he says.
***
Ezra sits on our bed, propped up by a pillow. He falls backwards and fights his way back up, officially sitting unassisted for the first time. He looks at me and beams widely, clearly [...]
God, these things are getting boring. I've got them down to a science:
Trot child in, answer questions, watch child stack blocks and complete puzzles and string beads, curse self for neglecting to cut child's long fingernails that are now caked with dirt because SOMEBODY has been reading The Snowy Day [...]
Noah's next big evaluation/assessment is first thing tomorrow morning. I've been busily anticipating it all day by not thinking about it. And blowing bubbles in the backyard. Then going to the playground. (The enthusiasm level was higher than in that last photo, I swear, since it's not 900 million degrees [...]
We upgraded Noah to a "big kid" booster seat this weekend. It did not go well. It is not going well. I'm not surprised -- honestly, the last time I bought him new SOCKS did not go particularly well either -- but there was no getting around it. Had to [...]
Look, unless something spectacularly hilarious happens to me in the next five minutes, I'm posting photos AGAIN and calling it a week. It's either this, or I could talk about who's puking in our house this time. Oh, the thrill. Feel it. YOU FEEL THE THRILL!
So...I don't know. I guess [...]
Wut's this? Another photo entry? Two in a row?
But wait! Here comes the excuse:
Jason took MY similar-looking-yet-naturally-completely-different-and-non-compatible power adapter by mistake this morning. You know, because I have [...]
Some handy steps and pointers:
1) STOP TAKING YOUR PHONE INTO BATHROOMS ALREADY, ASSHOLE.
2) Call phone, repeatedly. Curse out the automatic voicemail messaging service lady.
3) Head to Guest Services and the Lost & Found. Blank when they ask you to describe the phone. "Uh. It's a phone? 'Bout this big? [...]
How? How how how?
How are you six months old already?
Don't make me bust out with the "but it feels like only yesterday!" cliches, young man.
But seriously, weren't you a tiny smushy little newborn a few [...]
Where do I begin?
On the one hand, I'm glad I never got around to writing that entry about all the fabulous leaps and bounds we've made with Noah over the past couple weeks -- at least not the version I had in mind, which was puff full of Confidence! We've [...]
