Soccer, Baby!

If there’s anything that I am not these days, it’s athletic. I can barely pull myself off the couch and when I do, it’s usually to get myself a snack. (Heh)

However, back in the day -- way back in the day -- I used to be pretty active. My favorite sport was soccer, which I played for 12 years recreationally. So when I had the opportunity to review AthleticBaby’s new soccer DVD, I was excited. I’ve always wanted to introduce my son to soccer and this was a great way to get started, especially since we haven’t had much of a chance to get outside this winter.

The DVD is more like a soccer music video than an instructional DVD. Lively songs play in the background as you are treated to real-life images of children of all ages having fun playing soccer. From infants to teenagers, you’ll see kids kicking the soccer ball around on the field, scoring goals, or (for the infants) just pushing the ball around inside on the floor. The DVD featured both girls and boys playing soccer, which I was happy to see.

My only caveat is that while the DVD is sold for children 3 months and up, I don’t think my son would have benefited from it much as an infant. However, that’s based on my personal feeling that he didn't really benefit from TV in general until he was a toddler. He is now 19 months and I could tell that he found the DVD intriguing. He kept saying “ball” over and over again as we watched the video, and given that he doesn't do much talking yet, I think that is proof positive that he liked it!

Lastly, you’re not going to learn all the rules of soccer here, but that’s not the point of this DVD. What your kids will get out of this DVD is the motivation to get outside, kick a ball around, and get active.

This DVD sells for $16.99. For more information, visit www.athleticbaby.com

This review was written for Parent Bloggers.

Ode to a Husband from His Pregnant Wife

Love was…holding hands while watching a movie.
Love is… holding my hand while I’m feeling sick.

Love was… taking me out to a fancy restaurant.
Love is…taking me to my prenatal appointments.

Love was…bringing me breakfast in bed on a special occasion.
Love is… making me toast and jam every morning so I (maybe) won’t puke in the toilet.

Love was…picking me a flower.
Love is…picking me up from work every day to have lunch with me.

Love was… making me a special dinner.
Love is…making me and Little Guy dinner every night because it makes me sick to open the refrigerator.

Love was…putting down the toilet seat.
Love is… doing all the laundry and the cleaning and grocery shopping - and when I say all, I mean all – because you’d rather let me rest.

Love was…sleeping in together on the weekends.
Love is…waking up early on the weekends with Little Guy so I can sleep in.

Love was… telling me that you love me.
Love is…showing me that you love me.

Love is… stepping up and being there and never telling me to suck it up. And keeping me sane and making me feel not alone.

Love was…being a friend.
Love is…also being a partner.

It’s just that your bladder is not meant to be squeezed out by your uterus. It’s just not.

12:00am wake up to pee
2:00 am wake up to pee
3:30 am wake up to pee
4:30 am wake up to pee
5:30 am wake up to pee (false alarm)
6:30 am wake up to pee

I’m not above wearing an adult diaper to bed. It may have to come to that.

Edited to add: Special note to all you preggos out there! I just learned something interesting. If you drink MORE water during the day, you'll actually pee less at night. It's working for me. I now only pee about every hour and a half to two hours. Woo-hooo!

Mother Shower

I know this girl. She’s around 20 years old. She’s pregnant. She’s my cousin’s girlfriend. She and I barely know each other. We’ve only met once. But she seems like a nice girl. And she’s very pretty. Beautiful even. Not that that’s what matters, but she is. Dark hair, porcelin skin, like a doll. And she seems to be excited and happy about her pregnancy.

This girl is having a baby shower soon. Apparently, she made up the invitations recently, and I’m on the invite list. Or so says my Aunt, her future grandmother-in-law who I saw last night.

My Aunt tells me, “You’ll never believe what she did!”

“What?” I ask.

“She put ‘In honor of Mailee' on her baby shower invitations! Can you believe that? She put her own name on the invitation instead of the baby’s name. So I told her, 'Honey, it’s not all about YOU anymore. This shower is for the baby.'

According to my aunt, this made Mailee cry. She probably felt humiliated. As she looked down at the baby shower invitations that she had carefully helped design herself, Mailee probably thought that everyone was going to see that invitation and think, ‘Wow what a selfish girl, putting her own name on her baby shower invitation. Doesn’t she know that it’s not all about her anymore.'

Yes, I’m sure these thoughts were going through Mailee’s head. I envisioned the excitement about her upcoming baby shower being slowly drained out of her.

My aunt went on: “And you know what else? She’s inviting a HUNDRED people to her baby shower.”

“Wow, that’s a lot,” I said.

“Yeah. I told her, no one is going to want to sit around watching you open 100 presents, Mailee.”

And according to my aunt, this made Mailee cry. Again.

At first, I thought it was a bit funny myself that Mailee had put her own name on her baby shower invitations and was inviting so many people they had to rent a Hall for the event, but then at the same time, something about the whole thing made me feel sorry for Mailee. She is so young and she's going forward into the unknown of first-time parenthood and she's getting laughed at by her own family members. Female family members. Whispering and laughing behind her back.

What was she thinking putting her own name on the invitations?

Later that same night, I came upon a few paragraphs in this book that struck me. It was about baby showers and how superficial they have become. How they are more about cake and baby booties and the cutest new Pottery Barn crib bumper patterns than anything else.

How they are no longer about celebrating the woman. But how they should be about celebrating the woman. The woman who is about to become a mother. Again or for the first time. The woman who has gone, is going, through huge physical, emotional, spiritual changes to bring a new being into life.

Perhaps this woman needs some extra guidance. Perhaps this woman could use other women to gather around her at a special event to provide her support, answer her questions honestly, show how much they care. About her. Her who is about to change, be transformed. Forever. Her who will no longer be a child after that day. Perhaps she needs to be mothered, ritualistically, herself on that day.

Perhaps that is our job, as women, to do this for her.

Perhaps this woman has the right idea when she puts her own name on the “baby shower” invitations. Perhaps we have the wrong idea when we tell her not to.

***********************
Morning sickness is getting worse. Your kind comments and tips on my last post helped. They really did.

The Grind

7:00am Wake up feeling sick. Rue the morning. Call out to Husband. Need food –quick.

7:05am Roll over in bed to eat the breakfast he offers me. Eat lying
down. Feel temporary relief. Sit up.

7:20am Drag myself into the bathroom to pee. Accidentally
breathe through my nose while washing my hands. Feel like I’m going to puke from the smell of the soap. Resume composure after a few dry heaves.

7:30am Walk into the kitchen. Thank Husband for preparing Little Guy’s breakfast. Lay down on the couch to rest.

7:45am Husband leaves for work. Leaving me alone with Little Guy. Don’t want him to leave. He has to leave.

8:00am Run to the bathroom to puke. Throw up for a couple minutes.

9:00am Try to parent Little Guy while lying on coach moaning. Wish I could play with him. Feel like a bad parent.

10:00am Go into kitchen to get Little Guy a snack. Dread opening the refrigerator. Dread cleaning the highchair. Dread feeding him. Feel like I’m going to puke. Still feeling like a bad parent.

11:00am Continue parenting from the couch. Try to understand how people do this. This is hard.

12:00pm Still feeling nauseous. Have to eat. Have to make lunch. Ew. Hate the kitchen.

1:00pm Still feeling nauseous. Ugh. Realize this is only my 8th week of pregnancy, but my 4th week of morning sickness. Feel like I’m going to cry. Start crying. Feel ungrateful, but cry anyway.

2:00pm Little Guys goes down for nap. I go down for nap. Sweet relief.

4:00pm I wake up to hear Little Guy making small little cries from his crib. I ignore them for a while. I feel bad, but I am so tired. He will go back to sleep. And so will I…

4:10pm I get up to eat some crackers. And to pee.

Tiptoe back to bed. No more cries from Little Guy’s room. (bad, bad
parent.)

5:15pm Little Guy wakes up again. I go pick him up. Still sick. Still.

5:30pm Give Little Guy a snack. Realize I should be making dinner, but can’t. The kitchen is too disgusting. Food is disgusting. Preparing food, smelling food is disgusting.

6:00pm Husband gets home and takes over. I stumble over to the couch to lie down. He makes dinner. He plays with Little Guy. I lay on the couch. Worthless.

8:00pm Sick, sick, sick. I am tired of feeling sick.

8:30pm Briefly consider reading some blogs. Haven’t read blogs in forever. Realize I am too tired to read blogs. There is no way.

9:00pm Go to bed and start reading my new book on Morning Sickness. Find out that women have died from morning sickness. Died. Realize I don’t have it that bad. Realize it could be worse. Realize I am lucky. I am pregnant. I am happy. Try to focus on the positive.

10:30pm Get up to puke.

ROFL Awards - December

Another month of funny blog posts for your reading pleasure! Congratulations to all the winners!

p.s. Oh the Joys, please stop paying people to vote for you. That's really not fair and compromises the integrity of these awards.

OK, kidding!! I know you didn't pay anyone to vote for you. You are just one funny woman. You kick butt. If you guys aren't reading this lady yet, check out her winning posts and you'll be hooked.

Congrats again to everyone!



i obsess awarded Jenny from Mama Drama

JD's Daze awarded The Law Dog Files

Local Girl awarded Unexplored Territory

One Plus Two awarded Where's My Cape

Just Thinking...awarded Flexible Parenting

Table for Five awarded Mom/Ma'am/Me

Eva Las Vegas awarded The Random Muse

I Am Jack's Raging Mommy awarded Drunken Housewife

Momish awarded Oh the Joys

Red Stapler awarded Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

Girl in Her Underwear awarded Oh the Joys

Ntycncoricua awarded Oh the Joys

Warning: Delusional Preggo on the Loose in California

In follow-up to my post last week, this is an update on how I seriously kicked some college students' butts yesterday...

Or not.

OK. This is pretty embarrasing, but I trust that I won't get made fun of (that much) and I guess I have to blog about it because I owe you an update on this.

So, as you may recall, on Friday I was planning to go over to confront the college frat boy perps who knocked my fence down and meddled with my shrubbery, right? Well, I wanted to wait until the Husband got home from work so we could go over together, but he ended up going over by himself on his way home from work.

So, around 6:00pm, he comes home carrying a brown paper bag and tells me that he went over to their house. Here's the conversation:

Husband: I went over to confront the college boys about the fence.

Me: You did? Without me? What happened!?

Images of Husband being tied to a keg by the frat boys and forced to succumb to some horrible hazing ritual immediately entered my head. God, he should have brought me for back up. What was he thinking??

Husband: There weren't any college boys there.

Me: What? No one was home?

Husband: No, someone answered, but it wasn't a college kid. It was an old lady.

Me: An old lady?

Husband: Yeah, this really nice old lady lives there by herself. Her name is Mertyl and she's a widower. She's lived in that house for 40 years. And look - she gave me this huge bag of oranges from her tree.

Husband was indeed carrying a huge bag of oranges in his arms.

Me: But what about the wild party? And the college boys?

Husband: The party was happening at one of her neighbors' houses; it definitely wasn't happening at her house.

Me: But...

Husband: She said that it was wind that knocked the fence over. And that it's happened before. She's going to call her handyman and we're going to go in on fixing the fence together.

Me: But it hasn't even been windy!

Husband (shrugs)

Me: And what about the kid we saw peering over our fence the other day picking oranges off the tree? He was definitely in her backyard.

Husband: Oh, I asked her about him. That's her grandson. He was helping her out. I mean, she can't possibly get up on a ladder to pick her own oranges. She's like at least 80 years old.

So, there you have it folks. I was about to go kick the ass of some poor 80-year-old widow named Mertyl who is completely innocent. And the saddest part about it is that according to Husband, who spent some time visiting with her, she seems pretty lonely and was happy to have the company and meet her new neighbor. She said she rarely sees any of her neighbors. Isn't that sad?

And I am left feeling like a complete idiot. In my defense, we live in a neighborhood near a college so there are tons of college students that live around us - just apparently not behind us. And there was a party happening in our neighborhood on New Year's Eve, but since I went to bed before midnight, I wasn't paying close attention to where the music was coming from. It just sounded like it was in our backyard, but it might have been one house down from Mertyl. And then there was the college kid peering over our fence who turned out to be her grandson.

Anyway, enough with the excuses. I would say that I just need to back off the crack, but I haven't touched crack since I got pregnant sooooo I'm just going to have to blame this one on pregnancy brain.

******************

One more thing: I apologize that I haven't been visiting blogs. More on that later... But I would like to thank everyone for the nice congratulatory comments on the pregnancy. I read and appreciate each one very much.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Just a couple bloggy-related announcements for today....


Announcement #1: Great Opportunity to Get Free Stuff and Market Your Blog!

Julie and Kristen have recently launched a new website called The Parent Bloggers Network. This new Network is bringing together parent bloggers with PR firms and companies that would like to market their products through parenting blogs. The Parent Bloggers Network is currently taking applications from interested bloggers who would like to receive free products to review on their blogs. Learn all the details here, and if you would like to inquire about it, e-mail them here.





Announcement #2: December ROFL Awards
The deadline to award a December ROFL Award is only a couple days away! If you'd like to recognize a blogger and award them this nifty button, e-mail me a link to the post you'd like to award and a link to your blog by Monday, January 8th. The winners will be posted on my blog on January 9th. Reminder: these are the December awards so the post has to have been written in December.

You Mess with My Shrubbery, You Mess with Me

When I was in college, I did my fair share of partying. I mean, I wasn't a crazy party animal or anything, but I did meet Mr. MotR at a Pimps and Hos costume party. 'Nough said.

So I can appreciate the college days of drunken debauchery. I can appreciate kids just wanting to have fun and letting loose a little. I can especially appreciate this on New Year's Eve. I mean, that is the biggest party night of the year.

But here's what I don't appreciate. I don't appreciate looking out my window into the backyard today to see my fence pushed in and my bushes destroyed, presumably by the college kids who live in the house behind us who were partying to all hours of the night on New Year's Eve and apparently have absolutely no respect for other people's property and just allowed their guests to fall down into our fence (probably in drunken stupors) not caring at all for their neighbors and what they might think, not caring even enough to come by since then to apologize and offer to fix it.

Yeah, that's what I don't appreciate.

So, neighbor, you're on notice. I'm coming over tomorrow. And you will fix my fence. Or else.

Because I'm worse than hormonal. I'm pregnant, and I battle a toddler every day.

You messed with the wrong woman.

Upon Sharing the Pregnancy News with the Fam

Scene: Christmas Day

Me: Well, mom and dad, we got you a present but it won’t be here until August.

Mom: Why will it take so long?

Me: Well, it takes a while to "make" the present.

like 9 months – hint hint

Mom: Oh, what is it??

She didn’t get it.

Me: Well, I'll just say this. It has to be ordered way in advance and we didn't get around to ordering it until just recently.

Dad: Wait! Is it a car?

Me: Hmmmm. Uh no, not a car. (what the heck?)

Mom: Wait, I don't want to know! I want it to be a surprise!

Lordy.

Me: Are you suuuure you don't want to know?

Both: OK, OK, you can tell us.

Me: We're having a baby!!

Much happy squealing ensues. Hugs all around.

And then my dad goes: So what did you really get us for Christmas?

Gee, thanks Dad.

********************

Later, on the phone with my deaf 89-year-old Sicilian grandmother who speaks anything that enters her head:

Me: Hi, Grandma. I have great news!

Grandma: What? I can’t hear you! Speak up!

Me: I said, I. HAVE. GREAT. NEWS!

Grandma: Oh! What is it!

Me: We’re having another baby!

Grandma: WHAAAT??

Me: WE’RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!

Grandma: That’s wonderful, honey! How far along are you?

Me: Just a few weeks so far.

Grandma: Oh. Well, just make sure you don’t lose it.

(Pause. Did she say what I think she just said? Yep, she did.)

Me: OK, Grandma. I’ll try.

That’s my grandma for ya. God love her.

New Year's News

Wow. I feel like I've been gone an eternity. I think that two weeks without blogging is the equivalent of an eternity in blogger days!

I hope that everyone had a nice Christmas or Hanukkah.

I feel that it's about time to get a new post up because a) I can't stand looking at the Hoff one more second and 2) I have some news I want to share...


The picture is a bit fuzzy, but there are definitely two pink lines there. I'm happy to announce that we're having a baby!