Hair We Go...

Dear Hair,

We have had a lot of interesting times together over the years. I do apologize for my Metallica phase where I shaved the bottom of my head and made you very short for a very long period of time, while keeping the rest of the mane long and gnarly. In retrospect, I do agree with you that that could be considered a reverse-mullet, and it probably didn't look as cool as I thought it did.

I also apologize for my tween years when I let Grandma Lorraine perm it and then promptly put a Pebbles-pony smack dab in the middle of the top of our head. Whoops.

I don't feel an apology is necessary for dying you "rocket-fire red" when I was 16-ish because I still think that was way cool and ballsy of me.

But now it's your turn to apologize to ME. I'm done believing that all this shedding is part of being pregnant and nursing or whatever. The baby is 5 months old, and your jig is up. I'm so tired of seeing you dropping everywhere. I am tired of FINDING you everywhere. I have found you in food, underneath my saggy boobs, in the baby's diaper, and in the snowman I was building with Brynn. I am tired of having hairy webbed hands in the shower, and I'm tired of the sink looking like it's wearing a toupee when I get done brushing you.

If you insist upon this silly and stupid game, I will stop cleaning you and I will stop making you look all pretty. Have you seen G.I. Jane? Have you heard about Brittney Spears? I will take matters into my own hands.

Be good now. This was your last warning.

Regards,

Kimberlie

Walmart is a Weiner Glob.

First to explain my title. I have a wonderful book that all people must own. It comes in handy in moments of extreme frustration. It's called "Creative Cursing: A Mix and Match Profanity Generator." http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Cursing-Match-Profanity-Generator/dp/0762435755 (that's the best link i can do for now... someday i will learn how to type Here and it will take you there... but today, no.) So.. today the book said that Walmart was a weiner glob.

I was at the weinerglob store for 2 reasons. First, Brynn filled up her sticker-reward chart and I owed her some prizes for her good behavior. Second, I was forced to take a late lunch on Wednesday, so I had already snacked up a storm at my desk and was no longer very hungry. I decided to go have a midday mini-retreat with Brynn -- and the weinerglob is the closest store to her daycare.

So I picked her up and took her there. She decided on a Chixos Design-a-Loft http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11064064 (weirdest thing I've ever seen), and a coloring book. While being the weirdest thing I've ever seen (water as an adhesive, really??) Brynn had a fantastic time with it on Wednesday night... and so did my husband. I went to work on Thursday and shared these details with my coworkers. In an attempt to illustrate said Chixos Luxury Loft, I looked it up on weinerglob's website -- WHERE IT WAS ADVERTISED FOR $5 CHEAPER THAN I HAD PAID... and it said it was only available online. "This is weird," i thought to myself. My coworker encouraged me to call the weinerglob, so I did.

Their response, "Yeah! I totally hate when that happens, but we can't refund you the difference. Walmart.com is totally different than Walmart stores. We can't match prices." So I called another local weinerglob and got the same response. After instructing them to let their management know that I will never buy products from them again, I promptly ordered another Chixos Loft gadget from the website. My plan: To return my $15 loft with my $20 receipt that I recieved with my original purchase. Hah! I'll get you weinerglob.

Why do they have to make things so difficult? (insert exhausted sigh here).

Confessions...of a 30 Year Old Drama Queen

Since I can't think of anything to write about... I figure if I confess my deepest darkest secrets, my conscious will be cleared and good ideas will come to me. (deep breath) Here it goes:

1. I hate talking on the phone. I get bored and I often say "okay, that's all." Since I typically only talk to 2 people on the phone (my mom and my husband -- I avoid all others), I usually get a reply like "Are you okay? You sound mad?" I instantly feel bad and start to make up problems to justify my tone and/or abruptness. "Um, yes. I had a long day at work and ________ made me cranky." or "I am okay, I am just tired. Brandon was up a lot last night." (Sorry Brando.)

2. I hate washing my hands as I have a love for hand sanitizer. The bathroom at work has hand sanitizer. (YIPPEE) However, there are multiple stalls.... so if i am not the only person in the bathroom, I feel inclined to "pretend" wash my hands so if a person in a neighboring stall saw my shoes and knows that the navy blue slip-ons with a buckle belong to me, they will not spread nasty rumors that I am a dirty girl. If other people are washing their hands then I simply must play along and really wash them. Ugh.

3. I LOVE kicking the ice dingleberries that collect on the mudflaps and bumpers of my car.. and other people's cars too. I try to only kick them off of cars that I know. I get a big sense of accomplishment from this.

4. I like to go grocery shopping between the hours of 4-7pm because there are Caribou Coffee Happy Hours at all Hornbacher locations. You simply cannot beat 50% off of all drinks - and since I'm doing my grocery shopping, the Husband never knows about my secret purchase or the real impetus of me NEEDING to get food for supper.

5. I use nursing the baby as ways to get out of things. "Oh, Husband. I can't do the dishes - the baby has to eat soon." or "Husband, you need to take out the garbage, the baby is getting fussy."

That's all I can think of now.

please don't call me tico.

i love bon jovi. i love them a lot - and i love jon bon jovi even more. i have obsessively loved this man since i was approximately 6 years old. when i was in elementary school, i begged my mom to find me some red boots so i could look like jbj did in the "bad medicine" video. i was very excited when i found some at a store, but she said "no." she did however cave in and buy me those jean slip-on espirit shoes that EVERYBODY had in the fall of my second grade year. i had to wait until Christmas to get mine though, and by then they were no longer cool. oh well. i digress.

yes, i love bon jovi. i once informed my husband that, if ever given the opportunity, i would definitely have a consensual adult relationship with him. he got mad --- which only led me to conclude that he thought i had a reasonable chance at this occurring. yeeeeaaahhhh!

fast forward to the close present. the new bon jovi album came out in november -- i figure this was jon's birthday gift to me. i desperately wanted to listen to it in the car. brynn did not... so in an effort of assumed futility, i taught her some "dance moves." So, when jon sings "Yeah, Yeah!" we do jazz hands... when jon sings about the sun, we point to the sky, etc.... Now, to my dismay, this has become quite popular and dare say -- her obsessive love as well.

before we get into the car i get asked "can we listen to bon jodi?" (she can't say her "v"s). we get into the car and she says "you are going to be tico and i am jon bon jodi. tico, let's listen to 'boken pomise', tico." (she can't say her "r's" either) sometimes i play along, but mostly now i say "i don't want to be tico, i want to be mommy." sometimes she'll let me be mommy, but most of the time she says "you can be "dabe" then and bandon can be tico, okay dabe?" while nice to accommodate my desire to no longer be tico, this is not what i'm looking for...

to make matters worse, brynn secretly asked her grandma for a guitar for christmas. of course she got one. so now instead of just having to play tico and dave in the car, we have to continue the role play at home.... now she walks around with the instrument and does her best to sing the songs -- she doesn't have a guitar strap though, so she does have some problems holding on to the guitar while she does her jazz hands -- but she isn't bad.

probably the most embarrassing though, is when i take "jon bon jodi" to do errands with me. sometimes "bon jodi" refuses to take off her sunglasses. if i mistakenly call her by her pseudonym (aka "Brynn") i get loudly reprimanded "I NOT BINN! I BON JODI" i get a lot of stares.. so it's just easier to call her what she wants. i suppose she could ask to be called worse.. but it's tiring.

i never thought i'd get to the point where i'd actually be muttering the words "No bon jovi today. tico needs some quiet" -- but i have... more than once.

it's time! it really is.

new year's resolutions are silly. new year's "to-do" lists on the other hand are smart and right up my alley. i have been working on this list for weeks in my head and now it is time to commit.

1) The traditional "lose weight" goal is here. I have gained weight and it is time for it to leave. I have yet to formulate an actual plan to lose weight however. (sigh). (subgoal: come up with a plan to lose weight, other than wishing it away. apparently eating tator tots for dinner does not work)

2) Clean out all closets and get rid of all non-fitting clothes and all clothes that were purchased prior to 2000. ( subgoal: include Jeremy's clothes as well... even though he still thinks it's classy to wear high-school wrestling t-shirts.)

3) Make 5 new Betty Crocker cookie recipes. (subgoal: find out why her cookbook spells it "cooky")

4) Go on a family "vacation." Possible locales: Storybook Land in SD, Minneapolis (i needs me some IKEA and Outlet Mall..and friends, i miss my friends), or KS to see my dad/s-mommy.

5) Get a massage. So far this list is a lot of work.

6) Formulate a non-halfass business plan for law office. I keep dreaming about opening my own firm, but i need to do something about it other than nothing. (which i have perfected) i need to find out if it is something that i could do, reasonably.

7) Have (at-least) one date with Jeremy / month.

8) Bake a cake from scratch.

9) Landscape front yard... This does not have to be a full-scale landscape, but at the very least it has to be enough to keep stupid neighbor (aka "boatman") from parking his damn boat 1 foot from my bedroom window. he may think it's okay to park on my grass, but it will not be okay to park on my bricks, woodchips, flowers..etc. (subgoal: perfect evil laugh for when boatman sees landscaping and realizes his damn boat cannot be 1 foot from my bedroom window anymore)

10) Update kitchen -- new floor or new paint. something. less fur tumbleweeds from cat.

11) Start college funds for the kids. I am able to do this online so i just need to get my head outta my arse.

12) Let people know when they make me happy. i don't think i'm a mean person, but i don't think i always communicate my positive feelings all the time.

13) Grow a garden this summer. (subgoal: water the garden regularly)

14) Catch up on scrapbooking. (while fun, this is actually daunting since i haven't scrapbooked since Brynn was born)

15) Set up extra bedroom. (which is currently a toy/moving box dumping ground...with no bed or furniture other than buried treadmill, which could help me with #1. this list is oddly cyclical)

That's my list. That's what i've come up with.

this is for you, my blog stalker! (i've always wanted one of those)

in august, we went from 1 to 2, or from 3 to 4 depending on how and who you count. my pregnancy was fairly uneventful -- and i knew from day one that i was having a boy. i only asked the sex at the ultrasound to convince my husband and to get him off my case about all the clothes i had already bought.

since i had a c-section with brynn, i was able to schedule this birth. so, on the morning of august 20, my mom came over to stay with brynnie until she woke up, and then take her to daycare. i was a nervous wreck, and it was probably fortuitous that i dropped my hair straightener on my hand and had it go into instant blister zone, because my nerves disappeared because i now had to focus on my hand. (i loved walking into the hospital with a huge bag of ice on my hand).

here are the birth highlights:

• while prepping for surgery, the nurse realized she knew my in-laws. she starts chatting to me about 'how are they are doing' all while she's shaving me "down there" - "no - they are not in moorhead anymore, but yes they are still in the area."
• the anesthesiologist did not want me to have a ziploc bag full of ice in the operating room (my blistered hand), so he replaced it with a maxi-pad full of cold gel stuff.... so as i'm holding my gelly maxi-pad, one of the surgery assistants asked a little too loud "what? is it bring your own pad day?" um... no it wasn't. thanks for noticing, thanks even more for commenting.
• i had to call the nurse several times to teach me how to change that kind of diaper. i was used to girls.. not boys with spray guns.

when we came home highlights:

• combination of exhaustion, anxiety, and disbelief. i came home and kept going full-force (it's hard not to when people want to come over and see you) and also because the reality of two kids had yet to sink in. i think it took me at least a month before i was able to vocalize that i needed to rest and to slow down. i had some pretty major guilt about bringing home a baby to brynn's turf... and the whole reason we wanted another child was because of brynn - we didn't want her to be lonely. geesh. truly weird feeling.
• it was incredibly difficult to give brynn a bath, while holding a newborn, while my husband was mowing the yard. a tearful call to my mother soon followed...once brynn was out of the tub.
• my only job for the entire day was to pick up brynn from daycare and to snuggle baby and feed baby. i was always excited to watch 'bringing home baby' every morning at 7am because i liked to see the other parents - especially the ones that i thought were a lot more stressed out than i was. the episode where the mom pulled a muscle after her c-section and had to be whisked off to the hospital in the ambulance was a particular favorite. it was during this time that i began my love affair with jon&kate plus eight, and the duggars. if they could do it, so could i. heck, i only had two to keep track of.

two months later highlights:

• seriously? my maternity leave is over? wtf. an email to my supervisor requesting a couple extra days soon followed. i said that the dr recommended that brandon not start daycare yet. huge sigh of relief for my extra days.
• oh gawd. maternity leave was really over now. memories of a conversation with a coworker on her first day back at work after having her second baby started flooding through my head. i asked her 'so is it easier coming back to work after your second one? it must be a little better, right?' she laughed and said 'absolutely not.'
• yeah, uh, she was correct. my daycare congratulated me about a week after i returned to work - "hey kim! you made it through the entire day without calling!"
• routines are starting to develop at home (not sleep routines, but routines.) i can now get both kids clean on a timely basis. i can be home alone with both kids and not freak out about it. the guilt is gone. brynn now loves her brother most of the time.

four month highlights (aka: "the present")

• brandon hates cereal, applesauce, but loves boobs... which can be problematic at times for everybody else besides me.
• brynn loves her brother...sometimes a little too much. last week she was trying to be helpful, so unbeknownst to me, she decided to pick him up from the floor and bring him to me in the bedroom. um, scary. he survived the trip down the hallway, even though he arrived in somewhat of a headlock.
• i am very happy that we decided to have two babies, and that we were lucky and blessed enough to have two healthy, happy babies. i do not anticipate having anymore of my own -- i feel like i'd be tempting fate a little too much. i have always had this feeling however that i may be a surrogate for somebody, sometime.... but i feel like my family is complete.
• the routine, i fear, is set. we do not sleep through the night, but that is okay. we are perfect otherwise.