Even More Aaronisms

After having his teeth cleaned at the dentist he proudly announced that he has no "calories."

During yet another car trip:
Aaron:  Mom, how do babies get in a mommy's belly?
Me:  Well, mommies have an egg in their belly and God puts the baby in the egg.  Then it grows and grows and grows until it is time to be born.
Aaron:  Yeah, and since Elyse didn't have a beak to break out of her egg, the doctor had to take her out huh?

While waiting outside of the salon to get his hair cut:
Aaron:  Mom, do you have any change?
Me:  Well, let me see.  Why?
Aaron:  Cause I don't have anything in my pockets and how am I going to be a man with nothing in my pockets?

While playing in a mud puddle outside, he stops, comes over to me, and says, "Mom, I love you too much!"

On our way home from school Aaron said:  (In a really sad voice)
"Mom, when I get married, I'm not going to ever get to see Elyse again and I can't marry HER either!"

Mike had just finished running on the treadmill and he was tucking Aaron into bed:
Aaron:  You smell good Daddy!
Mike:  I'm all sweaty and gross.
Aaron:  Yeah, you smell like a Daddy.  You smell like a dude!

After passing a man on the side of the road who was chopping trees:
Aaron:  Mom, when I get big and marry somebody, I am going to cut up trees.  I'm still going to be a daddy, but I am going to cut up trees too.  I'm not going to work for money, but I am going to cut stuff up and be a daddy.  Will I have a coach?
Me:  You mean a boss?
Aaron:  Yeah, a boss.
Me:  Well, unless you start your own company you will have a boss.
Aaron:  I just want to cut trees up.

The Disney Princesses According To Elyse...

"Rella"

"Belle"

"Booty"

"Mommy"

My Baby girl thinks that I am a mermaid.  Oh, the things that go on in her beautiful little head.

I'd Take Him On A Teddy Bear Picnic. Wouldn't You?

I finally finished the teddy bear that I have been knitting for the last two months.  He was made using a pattern from the book Itty-Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson.  I think that he is super duper squishable and extra huggable.  What do you think?

The Best Day Ever!

While I am NOT a Sponge Bob fan, I find that there is only one song that can sum up my day thus far and this is it:


Today has been so super fantastically awesome that after you hear about it, you are going to want to come over and rub my belly for good luck. I won't let you, but you're gonna want to do it. So sit back and enjoy the retelling of The Best Day Ever!


When I woke up this morning, I was fairly certain that the day would suck because I had my days all mixed up thanks to Survivor airing on a Wednesday. Stupid Survivor! Anyway, while I was enjoying my morning coffee, I decided to check American Eagle’s website to see if by any chance they had their jeans on sale because I am in desperate need of a new (smaller, whoo hoo) pair. And do you know what? They WERE on sale. They are half off right now. Score! Now I won’t be that lady that you get stuck behind in Wal Mart that is constantly pulling her pants up every time she has to bend over to pick something up off of the shelf.

Next, I got the kids in gear and dropped Aaron off at school. I decided to take Elyse to my mother-in-law’s so that I could finish the Easter shopping and spend some quality time at Target. Janice was more than willing to watch her (Sucker!) and I was more than willing to escape (Smart!). On my way there I had a stroke of genius and I stopped off at Mc Donald’s to get a cup of coffee. Now, I love Target. Getting to stroll through Target without kids is like actually getting to experience that happy place that you go to in your head when you’re, oh I don’t know, cleaning a baby covered in her own feces. But strolling though Target without kids AND with a large cup of hot coffee makes me want to marry Target and have its babies. I really love me some Target.

After my incredibly awesome Target experience, I ran up to Wal Mart. As I was innocently walking down the ice cream isle, I found a huge stash of Ben and Jerry’s new Maple Blondie flavor which Mike and I have been stalking with limited success for quite some time. We love maple anything. If you cut us, we bleed maple. Finding more than one of these rare gems was almost too much to handle, but somehow I pulled it together and stocked up. I’m not going to say how many I bought, but I will say that it was more than one and definitely less than thirty-five.

Right after the ice cream discovery, I thought that I was having a pretty unbelievable day and I wanted to rush home before anything bad could happen that would screw it all up, but little did I know the best was yet to happen.

So I am driving down the road and there is this truck that is coming up on my left side and is about to pass me. As it drove by, I noticed that it was hauling something. Do you know what it was hauling? Come on, guess! You’ll never guess! Guess! Ok, I’ll tell you. It was hauling a life size replica of…

THE MYSTERY MACHINE!

As in Scooby Doo! THE Mystery Machine! Right next to me! I literally, out loud said, “OH MY GOD!” Besides hauling the Mystery Machine, the guy driving the truck was also hauling ass and I couldn’t catch up to him to get a picture from the side, but I did manage to get this shot from behind.

Ok, so I realize that the resolution is just about as bad as it can be, but I swear to you that THAT is THE Mystery Machine!

Now I think that I am going to lock myself in the closet and not come out till tomorrow to insure that this remains…The Best Day Ever!

Everybody Is Healthy And The Weather Was Fantastic…I Couldn’t Ask For More.

Well, we survived the crazy, doctor appointment filled day that was yesterday. Aaron went for his barium swallow test at 8:45 AM and he drank the stuff without batting an eye. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. They gave him the bottle, told him to drink, and he did. When we were leaving though he said, “Mom, they said that was a milkshake, but I don’t think it was really a milkshake.” Ahh, the life lessons of a five year old.


From what he could see, the doctor said that everything looks normal, but that he would take a closer look once the films came back. I’m glad that things seem to be ok, but that also means that he must just have a weird thing about certain food textures and the only thing that we can do is to talk him through it until he gets over whatever it is that’s bothering him.

Elyse had a well-check at 10:30 AM and as we already knew, she is super duper healthy and more than developmentally on track for her age. She was really showing off for the doctor too. When he came into the room, she started jumping up and down with both feet. A skill, the doctor said, that most two year olds can’t even have. He had her throw a ball back and forth with him and he was also impressed with those abilities.

She weighed 29.8 pounds and was just about thirty-six inches tall which puts her in the ninety-fifth percentile for height and the ninetieth percentile for weight. That means that in a room full of a hundred little girls her age, she is taller than ninety-five of them. She certainly didn’t get that from me. The only downside to the visit was that she had to get a shot. A shot, the doctor said, that has a real sting to it. After it was administered she kept saying, “Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie,” and she glared at the doctor like, “How dare you? We were having so much fun jumping and throwing the ball and then you go and do something like this. Bastard!”

We finished the day by playing outside in the absolutely gorgeous weather. Today was the official last day of winter and so it was the perfect way to put a period at the end of the season.

How Is It Possible To Think About Everything, Yet Concentrate On Nothing?

Lately I’ve kind of been feeling like I just might be losing my mind because never have I felt so scattered or unfocused in my entire life. I think that I caught a bad case of ADD from the pediatrician’s office last week. I knew I should have used more hand sanitizer before we left. I don’t know what my problem is, but my mind refuses to stay focused on any one thought for more than thirty seconds at a time….Hmmmm, I wonder if leprechauns and gnomes are friends in fairy land?


Huh, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, I can’t concentrate. Because I am so mentally spastic right now, I find it next to impossible to write a post that focuses on just one topic. So I am going to just write like I am thinking and we will see where it takes us mmmkay.

Aaron has to have a barium swallow test tomorrow. For several months now, he has mentioned off and on that his throat feels weird and that food is getting caught in his throat. He is even starting to go as far as refusing to eat certain things that he used to love because they now make his throat feel funny. Not ha, ha funny, but funny peculiar.

Parents, you know how these things work. These kinds of complaints are the Big Foot of the parenting world. You think that you see something, but you aren’t quite sure and then it is so infrequent that you question whether there was ever anything there to begin with and you sure as hell don’t want to show up at the pediatrician’s office with what you think is a Big Foot, but then it turns out to be your son in a monkey costume. You get what I’m saying, right?

Since Aaron tends to have a flair for the dramatic, we have kind of just let it go. But when he started mentioning it again last Thursday, we started to wonder if there wasn’t actually something to it and so we finally broke down and decided that it was time to take him to see the doctor even if it turned out to be a monkey suit.

We thought that maybe he had a tonsil issue, but when the PA checked him out she said that his tonsils were completely normal. Her only other explanation was the incredibly rare possibility that bands of tissue have formed in his throat. She said that these bands can cause tightening in the throat and food can get caught in them. Her answer…the barium swallow test.

Have you ever had to drink barium? It is NOT pleasant. It is a very thick, white, chalky liquid with a slight citrus aftertaste. My eyes are watering just thinking about it. Now, I can barely get this kid to let anything pass his lips unless it is either covered in ketchup or shaped like his favorite cartoon character. How in God’s name am I going to manage to get him to drink this liquid evil?

Next topic…

Ever since the most recent poop-in-the-bed episode, Elyse has been incredibly difficult to put to sleep. Naps, she has no problem with, but when evening rolls around and it is time for her to brush her teeth, she wigs out. She is also waking through the night screaming and I have to go in and hug her for a little while and when Princess has decided that she is all good again, only then will she cozy back up and go back to sleep.

So, that kind of sucks.

Moving along…

I recently bought a knitting book with all of these adorable toy patterns and I have been wondering if I should try to make some and sell them on Etsy. Etsy is a website where everything on it is homemade and many of the sellers are moms trying to make a few extra bucks. My friend Leslie uses Etsy to sell her adorable sock monkeys.

When I think about it, I get really excited and it makes me want to go to the craft store to buy all kinds of yarn so that I can get busy making a ton of cute toys that no one could possibly live without. But then I start to REALLY think about it and I am not sure that I could make them fast enough to carry any kind of stock. My days are limited as they are and I‘m not sure when I would find the extra time that I would need to seriously work on them. I imagine getting into a situation where I am running a tiny sweat shop out of my home but I am the only worker and I have to start knitting in the shower to keep up and before you know it, I will have gone six days without eating or sleeping and I will start naming my knitting needles and spontaneously laughing into my coffee cup because I think that the word couch is funny.

I could go on, but I think that I have shared enough for today. Now if you would excuse me, I feel the need to spend some time thinking about unicorns and whether or not they could be related to the horse of a different color from the Wizard of Oz. Heavy, huh?

Nothing Good Can Come From Springing Ahead

I was just telling my mom this afternoon that I am so happy that I started this blog because one day I hope that the kids will sit down to read all of these posts and they will get a little better understanding of why their mother is completely and totally insane. Take last night for example...


It was that unfortunate time of year when the clocks spring ahead an hour and chaos and confusion reign supreme while schedule oriented families such as ourselves struggle to regain order and control. Everybody slept late and when bedtime rolled around an hour earlier than usual we opted to give the kids an extra half an hour of TV time before forcing them to retire for the evening. At first, Aaron found this deal to be a bunch of crap and he whined about how he wanted to watch a bunch of shows, and this isn’t fair, and blah, blah, blah. But then he reconsidered his position on the subject and went in the extreme opposite direction by brushing his teeth on his own, hopping into bed, and yelling, “Isn’t anyone going to come and say goodnight?” I will never understand that boy.

So he went to bed, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t going to see him again, and oh boy did we see him. He must have come out of his room thirty different times all for varying reasons with questionable explanations until it got to be about 10:00 PM. Mike and I were still up watching some Everybody Loves Raymond episodes when we started hearing a sound that we couldn’t quite place. We were sure it was coming from Aaron’s room, but it was anyone’s guess as to what he was into. Then, about two minutes later we heard a huge thud and we knew instantly that he had fallen out of his bed…his LOFT bed.

We ran in and found him on the ground, sobbing, and holding his head. He wasn’t really hurt, more scared than anything. I thought for sure that we were going to have to make a late night ER run, but luckily nothing was broken. We’re pretty sure that his head took the brunt of the fall which is lucky for him because he without a doubt has the hardest head of any five year old known to mankind.

When he settled down he told us that he was trying to look out of his window. At what? It’s ten at night and pitch freakin black outside! Boys?!? After we iced him down and Tylenoled him up (what, Tylenoled is a word) he decided that it just might be a good idea to sleep on the bottom bunk for the night. Good thinking Buddy.

Today he seems completely fine except for a small bump on his forehead. He seems to have learned an important lesson regarding bed diving and I think that it will be quite a while before he does anymore late night window gazing. Between Aaron flying out of bed and Elyse stripping and pooping in bed, I am starting to develop a nervous twitch at the very thought of bedtime. Would it be wrong to start tying them to their beds at night?

Poo Story #2. Get It, Number Two! Tee, Hee!

SOoooooo…


Last night, much like I do every night, I went into Elyse’s room to check on her before Mike and I went to bed because she sleeps all crazy and she is NEVER covered up and it’s anyone’s guess as to where she might be in her crib when I walk in. But last night, oh, last night, I didn’t get to simply go in and cover her back up because just like the last time that I entertained you with tales of poo, I was assaulted with the aroma of poop as soon as I opened her door and upon closer inspection I could see that my baby girl was curled up with her Blankie, completely naked, and completely covered in crap. Oh yeah, and cozied up next to her was a massive, um, well, let’s just say that when I looked at it, I completely expected it to sit up and say, “Howdy Ho!”



It was 10:00 PM.

I grabbed Mike and told him that we had a situation and together we stood there for a second not quite sure how to proceed. Elyse was totally sound asleep, but she was naked…AND COVERED IN POO! What could we do but wake her up to begin the sterilization process? Of course, she was immediately hysterical. She had no clue what was going on and why in the hell we were throwing her in the bathtub so late at night. Why were we torturing her?!? Um, because you are covered in crap, Sweetie…AGAIN!

Mike gave her the bath and I handled the poo because, you know, it’s what I do I guess. The worst part of it was (yeah, there was something worse than seeing Elyse marinated in her own poo) was that Blankie unfortunately did not escape unscathed and had to be washed. Do you have any idea what that meant? Can you appreciate the seriousness of our situation where we had a hysterical baby who can only be calmed by two things, a pacifier and her precious, most beloved Blankie? And one of those two things is unavailable due to the generous smathering of crap it had received thanks to none other than the hysterical baby?

We were screwed…or so I thought.

Somehow, by the grace of God, she was SO out of it and SO exhausted that I was able to fool her with a Blankie imposter until the real Blankie came out of the dryer. But don’t go thinking that that is where the story ends ladies and gentlemen. Oh no. That would have been way too easy. Now we had upset Princess and she was NOT going to give up and go back to sleep without a fight. We had pissed her off and so she would torture us with sleep deprivation. She completely refused to go back into her now fresh and poop-free bed and the only way that she would calm down was to curl up with Mike on the couch. So he held her there while I kept a constant, unrelenting vigil at the dryer waiting for Blankie’s release.

It was after midnight by the time Mike and I saw our bed and it had to be close to 1:00 AM before we could relax enough to fall asleep. The alarm goes off at 5:15 AM. I have a feeling it is going to be another long day and that I am going to have to pound caffeine in all of its glorious forms much like an oriental individual at a hot dog eating contest. Oh, was that insensitive or discriminatory? Well, after last night I have to say I don’t really give a crap. Get it, cause we spent the night covered in crap? Whatever, I need to go get more coffee.

Totally Awesome, Super Cool Haiku Contest!

So my friend Leslie over at My Mommy's Place is hosting her semi-annual Haiku Buckaroo contest. Just what is the Haiku Buckaroo contest you ask? Well, it’s simple. Think back to your high school English class and you might remember that a haiku is a poem that is broken into syllables; five on the first line, seven on the second, and five on the third. All you need to do is submit an original haiku to mymommysplace.com, cross your fingers, and hope that you are the lucky winner. If you don’t have a blog, she has a form on her site that you can use to submit your work. You should so take advantage of this opportunity for fame and fortune. This is what I submitted…


Haikus and Mommy Brain Don't Mix
by
Amy Hicks

In the last few days
I’ve started this haiku more
times than I can count.

But interruptions
are many and my brain…mush.
Tensions start to mount.

I was creative
once, in a time before kids
Wasn’t I? I think.

Hang on, Elyse is
behind the couch and something
is starting to stink.

I’m sitting back down,
now that the girl has been changed.
Where was I again?

Oh right, the haiku
where I’m drawing a blank.
My head starts to spin.

Hey wait! I’ve got it!
Words are coming to me now.
I’m soon on a roll…

Until Aaron needs
me to unclog the toilet.
Urgh, damage control!

Well, I got there in
time to contain the poo flood
and stopped a huge mess.

Thank goodness I’m quick
with mad plunger skills. It’s a
gift I must confess.

Now let’s try again
with the five, seven, five; it
can not be that tough.

Don’t hit your sister!
Get that thing out of your mouth!
Urgh, I’ve had enough!

I thought I could do
this and write a haiku that’s
fit for Leslie’s game.

But clearly I can’t.
I should just give up now and
turn in something lame.

So here’s what I’ve got.
Can you handle this? You should
hold on to your seat…

Haikus are tricky
‘til you just throw out words like
reinforced concrete.

Sometimes Multitasking Isn’t What It’s “Cracked” Up To Be

I am one of those people who find it impossible to do just one thing at a time. If I’m not putting away laundry, while fixing dinner, as I am on the phone with a telemarketer, and pulling Elyse off of the dining room table, then I am not performing to my full potential. It just seems wrong to devote all of my attention to one task when there are so many things that need to be tended to. Would Super Woman be caught dead performing just one mundane activity at a time? I don’t think so. However, on Saturday I was NOT Superwoman and this happened…

See, there is supposed to be a windshield where that shattered hole is.  How did I do it you ask?  Multitasking.

Last week was a baaaaadddddddddd, BAD week.  Frustration levels ran high as did escape plans and day dreams of far away deserted islands.  Come Friday I was a mess and I was so thankful to have Mike home for the weekend.  Heh, heh, heh sucker! 

Anyway...

After a fantastic Saturday morning pancake/sausage breakfast, Mike offered me the option to escape alone to get groceries and I jumped on it faster than Octo Mom on a willing donor.  On my way to get the groceries, I stopped to get gas and I thought, "Gee, that back windshield is so dirty.  Perhaps I will take a moment to clean it whilst the van is guzzling down gas like its dollar draft night.  I washed the crap out of the window and when I was done, it was so sparkly I could see my face in it.  Satisfied that even though the van was filthy, I at least had a clean back windshield, I headed onward and upward to conquer the groceries.

After the groceries were taken care of, I drove through Wendy's to get the kids some lunch and then headed back home, mostly willingly, because I was excited to put the new windshield wipers on the van that I had picked up while shopping.  We have only needed new wipers for about two months now, so I was all giddy to see what it would look like when I washed the windshield with brand new wiper blades.  Hey, sometimes it's the little things, you know.

So I pulled the van into the garage, hopped out, and opened the back hatch to get the wiper blades.  But then while I stood there opening them I realized, "Hey, you don't know how to put on wiper blades.  This could take a while."  And so I decided that it would be better to get the kids their lunch and then run back down to the garage to get back to the business of replacing the blades. 

Here is where multitaking comes in...

When I had opened the back hatch to get the wiper blades, I realized that I had parked a little far out into the driveway and I was going to have to stand in a ton of snow to get the rest of the groceries.  So I thought, "Hmmm, I will just pull up a little so that when I come back, the van will be in the right place and I can get right to those groceries after the wiper blade thing."  BUT...I kinda forgot that the hatch was open; well, until I heard the crunch.  I got out and yep, the hatch was stuck under the beam of the garage ceiling.  I tried to pull it down, but it was stuck real nice.  So I did the only logical thing which was to back out again, and so I did.  I backed out just far enough until I heard the whole window shatter into about a billion pieces.

I wanted to laugh.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to vomit.  I did NOT want to have to walk upstairs to tell Mike what had just happened.  Maybe he won't notice?  But I hung my head and went to tell him that Super Woman was defeated by a garage ceiling.  Stupid ceiling.  Lucky for me, Mike isn't one of those husbands who scream and yell and flip out over these kinds of things and he accepted it rather well.  He got right on top of calling someone to fix it and filing the insurance claim and the whole deal.  Someone will be here tomorrow to take care of it.  Thanks Honey!

So that's what I did on Saturday.  Have you done any multitasking lately?