My Little Fashion Critic: The Head and Face Edition

I’ve been working on a photobook the last couple nights, and I’ve run into some “colourful” photos of the munchkin expressing his opinions on my outfit choices…specifically when it comes to head and face wear!

Case 1: The Party Hat
But I thought kids liked Elmo! I guess if it’s not his birthday, he’s not playing along.

Case 2: The Sunglasses
He does not wear his sunglasses at night, Corey Hart. Or during the day. Or EVER.

Case 3: The Winnie the Pooh Hat

I’m not sure if he’s pouting because he thinks Winnie the Pooh is lame, or because one ear wouldn’t stay up.

Case 4: The Rudolph Nose
He’s like my cat: he thinks if he leans back far enough, he can pull his nose out of the Rudolph nose.

Disclaimer: The munchkin was not physically damaged in the taking of any of these photos. I can’t promise that he wasn’t emotionally damaged, however…but hey, gotta keep those therapists in business!

You say meow, I say reeeeeaaaaaarrrrrrggghhhhh!!

Before munchkin was born, I did everything I could to prepare my cat, Puddin’ (yes, that’s his name…derived over the years from “I taught I saw a puddy cat!”). I sat down with him, played some YouTube videos of babies crying for him, and asked him to please please don’t bite at or poop on his new baby brother (I am not a crazy cat lady, I am not a crazy cat lady…).

I was nervous when they first met. Puddin’ cautiously crept to Munchkin’s side as he slept in his car seat, tentatively sniffed at him…and then walked away and proceeded to ignore him for six months.

Well then.

It wasn’t until Munchkin started to sit and play on his own that Puddin’ paid any attention to him at all. He would walk by, glancing at the munchkin from the corner of his eye, scoping out this tiny-human/hairless-cat that had intruded on his cosy little existence.

Unfortunately, around this time Munchkin also started to become aware of Puddin’ (though to be fair, I kinda think he believes Puddin’ is just a really awesome moving stuffed animal). I can tell whenever he has spotted him because he starts doing this crazy flailing arm thing accompanied by screeching that seems reserved for Puddin’ alone (because cats don’t meow, according to my child…they shriek like a velociraptor).

At which point the cat will give me a look as though to say, “No seriously, what the hell is wrong with that kid?!?”

I don’t know, Puddin’. I don’t know.

Okay fine, scheduling is good. Jeez.

Uh…can I get you some lunch or something?

I hate being wrong.

Admitting I’m wrong is even worse.

I spent months insisting that having Munchkin on a schedule would be too limiting for me and wouldn’t work for him and yadda yadda yadda.  And to be fair, a few months ago it may not have worked out well.  But as I started incorporating solids into his diet and we started to fall into a breakfast/lunch/dinner routine, suddenly everything started to fall into a routine.

And it. is. AWESOME.

Suddenly, I can actually interpret some of his crying: if it’s 10 am, he wants breakfast; 2 pm, he wants to nap.  It’s the next best thing to inventing a baby translator (a la Simpsons, love it).

So now I feel bad for all the other mom’s I encouraged to join in on my poo-pooing of the Schedulers.  I feel like I need to send a mass email telling them all, “Wait.  Stop the presses.  I was wrong.”  Maybe I should cc all the Schedulers that I smiled and nodded to (before poo-pooing their methods behind their backs).  I should probably print off the email and give it to my mother while I’m at it (afterall, she can’t log into a computer successfully, let alone open up a browser and navigate to her hotmail).

(But, in lieu of all that work, I’ll probably just quietly pretend I was really in favour of scheduling all along…I’m never wrong…)

“Seriously?!?” 5 baby moments that make you wish you never got out of bed that day.

Being a mom opens the door to some beautiful, joyous moments.

These are NOT those moments.

1. You’re out with your baby and he has a major diaper blowout. You thank god you packed an extra set of clothes…until you realize that you didn’t pack any diapers…

2. You make a playdate weeks in advance, and your little one wakes up that morning crusted with snot and sneezing all over you.

3. You take your little one’s bib off so everyone can see his cute outfit…only for him to choose that moment to barf all over himself.

4. Diaper change time! You wrestle him out of his wet diaper, slap a clean one on, do up all his onesie snaps, and play “catch the flailing baby legs” so you can get his pants back on. And right about then you notice some grunting and a faint poop odour coming from the little rascal…

5. Your little guy is *finally* asleep for his nap. You wash a couple dishes, take out the garbage, then tip toe past his room for your nap. And the second your head touches the pillow? Your baby is screaming like the illegitimate love child of a banshee and a fire alarm.

Post your “seriously?!?” moments below!

On top of spaghetti, all covered in cheeeeeeese…

Don’t you just love it when you’re changing a diaper at 3 am and the little meatball poop falls out of the diaper while you’re disposing of it and rolls away? Of course you then have three options:

a) Feel around for it in the soft glow of the night light until you find/squish it;

b) Turn the overhead light on, which means you’ve now doubled the length of time it will take the little one to fall back asleep; or

c) Leave it, wherever it may be, until morning.

(It’s like an excerpt from the worst “Choose Your Own Adventure” book EVER.)

My pre-mom self is judging me for talking about poop.

Munchkin pooped three times today and I had to fight the urge to update my Facebook status about it.

Guess it’s a mom thing.

Have Baby Will Travel

My husband and I love to travel. Since university, we’ve travelled at least once a year, be it flying out to Europe or driving out west along the Trans Canada. So when we found a last minute deal on a cruise to the Bahamas, we said “Hells yeah” and packed our luggage like it was the end of days. (Side-note: Isn’t it awesome that it’s 2013 and we’re all still alive? Take that, Mayans!)

We boarded the ship with smiles and optimism. We had nailed the flight to Orlando (munchkin slept most of the way *insert choir of angels singing here*). I had this vision of what our trip would be like: he would eat wherever, nap in his stroller, and we would spend hardly any time in the room. Oh, and of course I would magically lose my mummy tummy the moment I slipped my bikini on.

Alas, reality was waiting for us in our tiny tiny stateroom. Munchkin hated the nursing cover (well, it’s more like he loved to rip it off), he refused to nap anywhere (which meant he was more than a little loco by day 3), and nothing could stop me from obsessing over whether he had enough sunblock on (as it is, all three of us are as pasty white as the day we left).

One day in, we had to wonder if we were total dumbasses for vacationing with our little man. We were tired. He was cranky. It took us forever to get ready every time we left the room.

Then, on day 2, something amazing happened: we got to dip his little feet into the ocean. He felt sand. We watched him laugh and bounce during the evening show. We beamed at each person who fawned over him.

I realized that like anything else post-baby, the trip was not going to be the same as previous ones, but that’s not to say it wasn’t going to be enjoyable. Experiences like drinking until 2 am and tanning on the deck sipping Mai Tais were simply traded in for new experiences like watching the munchkin’s first sunset or laughing at his strange reaction to sand beneath his feet.

We had an amazing (and very very exhausting) time, and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

I’m baaaaaack!

Well, I’ve been MIA for damn near a month but here I am, back in action after the craziness of the holiday season. Munchkin’s first Christmas was pretty awesome. He went 8 hours without napping on Christmas Eve with nary a meltdown (who can nap when you’re being passed like a jug of wine and you have three older cousins who are going completely bat-shit crazy over you?). Christmas day we drove three hours to stay at my in-laws for a few days where he and I both managed to dodge the nasty cold that was taking the family down one by one. New Years Eve we “partied” it up with two other parent couples (and by “partied” I of course mean staying awake past midnight by choice, which is pretty kick ass).

Happy New Year, Ladies

So now it’s back to life as usual – the tree is down (lies, it is standing bare in our diningroom waiting to be taken out to the garage), and the presents are (kinda sorta) packed away. Next up I’ll be posting about our pre-Christmas trip to the Bahamas, so until then!

I Swear, I Used to Have Standards: The Food and Drink Edition

As I sit here, eating a leftover Baby Mum-Mum and drinking warm, flat pop, I can’t help but think: man, I really used to have standards.

First of all, I now buy everything at Walmart, because nothing sucks worse than having to get your kid into and out of the car seat/stroller a zillion times to buy all your groceries/ toiletries/ Christmas gifts…except maybe Walmart produce…

I’ve been a Starbucks junkie since corduroy pants were cool, but there’s no drive-thru location nearby and it can be a pain in the arse to drag the munchkin in. Now, I will drive twice as far to the Tim Hortons (eh?) or McDonalds drive thru just to avoid doing so. And speaking of coffee, everything I order past noon has to be decaf, otherwise I’m dealing with a crazy, jacked-up baby until midnight. Have you tasted a decaf latte? It’s like giving a Canadian a bottle of Bud.

Oh, and don’t forget, you either chug your coffee down while it’s burning hot because you know any second he’s gonna have a meltdown, or he’s already freaking out and your drink is cold by the time you settle him down.

Same goes for food. I used to be able taste food. Now I just shove it down when he lets me, which is usually half an hour after its been served. Nothing says delicious like congealed gravy on cold turkey. Awesome.

If he wasn’t a baby, I would say he’s kind of a jerk…

Don’t you just love it when you’re trying to feed your baby and he:

a) grabs parts of your face and squeezes as hard as he can;

b) gives you a wet willy;

c) rips your glasses off your face and hits you with them. Repeatedly. While laughing.

I apologize to future schoolmates for somehow creating the playground bully.