Thanks for crushing my ego, come again!

Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like everything is going perfectly then somebody's seemingly benign little comment completely kills your awesomeness? Yeah, that totally happened to me the other day.

I had taken the kids to the children's museum and it was great. Seriously. Max only ran off once, and it wasn't even that far away. And he even let me catch him. Molly was nice to other kids and she never even complained about going to the farm room so that it would be easier to feed Maggie. So not like my daughter to be complaint free, but she was. We even met a few new friends, which is always a lot fun. We just had a great time.

Then we ate lunch and went to Target. Lunch was amazing. Max actually sat and ate his lunch. Target was even better. Molly didn't have one tantrum.* Not even a minor bitch-fest.

Then it was time to leave. Baby in stroller, toddler on my back and Molly holding onto the stroller while we navigated the busy parking lot. Military precision! It was so smooth I even had time to leisurely sip my latte!**

Enter older woman (it's always an older woman) who hustled halfway across a parking lot to ask me if I needed any help because I "looked completely overwhelmed." yes, that is a direct mother fucking quote (if you were wondering, iPad totally separates mother fucking into two words--least it doesn't make it mother ducking like my Droid does). She did this all while grabbing my son's ass in obvious fear that he was going to fall out of his carrier which I assure you has never happened.

I was really flustered and kind of laughed/giggled very strangely and said no, I was perfectly fine. I once again sipped my latte*** to prove just how fine I was, then I continued onto my car. She followed for a couple feet with an odd look of concern/doubt/disapproval on her face before turning around and going into the mall.

Totally killed all of my warm fuzzy feelings. I spent the next 45 minutes (I took the long way home to force naps and have some quiet time) wondering why somebody would think I looked overwhelmed. Did she think I look frazzled? Did I sound upset or overwhelmed? Do I just look generally incompetent? I don't think it was any of those. Honestly, I think it was mostly the carrier. Baby on my back = OMG overwhelmed/hands full to a lot of people. Once I reminded myself of that I totally regained all of my awesomeness.

Awesomeness that I am going to need to need today. Because today is kind of sucking right now. Where's concerned woman when I really need her?

*Molly doesn't tantrum all of the time, but Target does seem to be a huge trigger for her for some reason. If there's going to be a huge tantrum, it's going to be at Target.

**It was really a Diet Pepsi from Taco Bell, but "latte" sounds so much more stay-at-home mommy.

***Still not a latte, see above. Also, "latte" sounds so much more relaxed than Diet Pepsi for some reason...

What lurks beneath

Here's a picture of my daughter's cute little "I Love Mommy" cat PJ's.

It's cute, isn't it?  Sweet little kitty hanging out on her mommy's head, hanging out in my daughter's pajama pocket for no discernible reason. 

Until you look a little bit closer.

Cute little kitties, my ass.  Freak show kitty has no fucking legs.  No wonder she's hanging around in a pair of pink infant PJ's; it's not like she can just jump out.

Stupid amputee cat.  It's likely giving my daughter a lifelong fear of legless cats.

Wordless Wednesday

Mornings

My favorite time of the day has become morning.  Really.  Early morning, right when I wake up.  Because my husband is made of facial hair and awesome, he gets up with the two older kids, leaving me to lounge about feed Maggie in bed. 

Feeding does happen, but mostly it's just general cuddling and smiling and giggling.  Maggie wakes up so happy in the morning that it should be illegal. She giggles, she "talks" to me, and she pets my face.  And I love it.

I didn't get to do this as much with the older kids because most mornings were filled with showers, feedings and daycare supply gathering.  I never got this extra chunk of time every day to just hang out with my babies doing nothing.  I really wish I had because it's so wonderful.

I know it won't last forever, Maggie's almost 6 months old* now, and she's already on the move.  Pretty soon she'll be crawling out of bed with her brother and sister, But for now, she's perfectly content just hanging out with me, hogging my bed, and I'm perfectly fine with that.


*6 months is the most magical of baby ages.  Six-month old babies are great, they are the reason people keep having babies.  They are giggly and sweet and cute.  They do not run around growling at people in malls, they do not climb on your counters and try to eat your cell phones.  They sleep, they poop, they smile, they stay where you put 'em (mostly) and they think you are the funniest, most awesome-est person on the entire planet. 

Random Sunday stuff

I'm far too scattered for an actual post, but I feel like I haven't posted enough.  And writing is good for me, stops the brain atrophy or something.  So you get a list of random thoughts I've had over the last day or two.

Yesterday we were watching the Hawkeyes game and every time Ricky Stanzi took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his flowing locks (and they have definitely reached that stage of hair growth) I kept expecting them to run it in slow motion.  That would have been awesome.

Speaking of football, I noticed that Hy-Vee actually opens up on game day Saturdays at 6 a.m. as opposed to their typical 8 or 10 a.m. or whatever it is.  Fall is a great time to be an alcoholic in Iowa City, even with the ridiculous new tailgating rules.  I'll have to remember that if my painfully suburban life leads me to the bottle.

Last football thing, and this is a fake football thing, but still important to me.  I really needs to get season 4 of Friday Night Lights.  I love that tv show, and you would too if you watched it.  Seriously, watch it.  Then we can talk about Kyle Chandler's hair.

I have 3 things shipping to me and they should all be here tomorrow (companies/people shipping on Fridays are bastards--just sayin').  I fucking love getting packages.  I'm excited like it's Christmas or something.  I even debated bailing on a park activity that I'm taking the kids to, just in case my packages come early, because I love being home when I get packages.  It's an overlooked perk to being a stay at home mom.  At least for me it is.  But anyway, I won't bail on the activity, not only because I'm an awesome mom (okay, sometimes--like today, when I made carrot cake cupcakes, or is it carrot cupcakes, whatever), but because I know our mailman is always late.  We'll go, we'll have fun and when I get home I get new stuff!  Yay me!

Last thing.  I feel all awkward and self-conscious because my husband knows I'm blogging, so I know he'll read it when he's done reading to the kids 'cause he's awesome that way.  But I'm well aware that this posting is kind of lame and I don't want him to be all disappointed in me.  Shit.  I'll do better next time, I promise.

Children of the Cloth*

There are whole blogs devoted to cloth diapering.  Really.  Whole blogs.  And yes, I have subscribed to some of them.  Why?  Well, anybody who reads this blog (all 2? of you--hi!) knows that I do cloth diaper my babies, and have for quite some time.  I thought that these blogs might have some useful tips and/or tricks**, but really, they don't.  They do have product reviews, which could be nice if you're in the market for new cloth diapers.  But mostly it's just OHMYGODMYCLOTHDIAPERSARESOFREAKINGCUTE wanking.

Over diapers.
You know, the things babies shit in and you have to either wash or throw away.
Yeah, those.

I mean yeah, they're cute and all, and maybe it's me who's weird, but I just can't get all worked up over them.  In my mind they're for befouling, not for mixing, matching and obsessing over.  Yeah, occasionally I know that Maggie's diaper is going to be visible underneath a dress, and I might choose a diaper or cover that kind of matches, but I certainly don't go out of my way to do it.  I have one of the simpler diaper stashes*** around.  Basically two kinds, and 3 colors.  And I see absolutely no reason to go beyond that.  For me, cloth diapering was about simplifying my life, spending less money and maybe, just maybe leaving a slightly smaller footprint than one normally does with three kids.

But for some people that's not so true.  There seems to be a whole subculture of people who have made cloth diapering a hobby.  They're willing to spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on a huge stash of diapers in different prints and colors.  One company**** has really cashed in on this and offers limited edition diapers that go for $25-$35 dollars.  These things get wait-listed.  Waist-listed, people, for diapers.

Now don't get me wrong, if you have the money, and you want to spend it this way, more power to you.  There are far worse things to collect (and let's face it, that's what you're doing at this point--collecting) than cloth diapers (Precious Moments figurines come to mind).  But I think that these types of blogs and cloth diaperers (not a word, I know--stop judging me) do a disservice to cloth diapering.  When I first went searching for advice I was completely overwhelmed by what seemed to be an endless supply of options.  Expensive options.  These women own a lot of fucking diapers (a shitload?).  I was looking to save money, not spend it.

Fortunately there are a couple of forums out there that have reasonable advice from average everyday cloth diapering families.  Using a lot of this information I was able to put a very reasonable (boring) stash together for relatively little money.  There is really noo need for a ton of diapers, 'cause no matter how many you have you've still got to wash them pretty often 'cause people shit in them.  No need for fancy either, just soft and absorbent.  If this type of information were more available to the average "cloth diaper" google-er that more people might try it (I'm going to assume that a person who's gone out of his/her way to actually google cloth diapers has already gone beyond the OMG there's poop factor).  And that's not a bad thing.


*This is a bad reference to Children of the Corn.  No, I don't usually compare that movie to my kids' diapers, but I was also thinking that it feels like early fall today and that soon it would be time to watch that movie.  I watch it every year in the fall.

**There can definitely be tips/tricks involved in cloth diapering.  Yes, I do realize that the mechanics behind it are crazy simple.  Insert cloth, shit, remove, wash, repeat.  But, there can be washing issues, fabric issues, putting them on issues, etc.  Unfortunately the typical cloth diaper blog answer to these questions involves buying more stuff that you can only get from online companies.

***Stash in this case does not refer to the same thing it did when we were in college.  Amongst the mommy spends too much money circles (cloth diaperers, babywearers) it also refers to your collection of cloth diapers or baby carriers.  I don't know how that term came into use.  I have theories.  I'd go into them, but my son is climbing on the counter.

****Yes, I know they're handmade with organic fabric by WAHMs (work at home moms) who get a living wage, etc.  But I don't care.  Let those bitches go to Tot Lot and make silly blogs like the rest of us.