Sippy World Cup

500.

2011-05-15T21:42:00.003-05:00

ok. It has taken me a YEAR to finally post my 500th post. Cue balloons to fall from the sky. That is ridonkulous. I was scared of 500. Not as much as the looming 40, but that's another post entirely. One that I will probably write in my nightmares and share with you all. But I got this email today about my favorite little miss b who decided to start a blog. well, i was inspired! So hi, HOW ARE YOU? And by you, I am talking to myself b/c I'm pretty sure after 13 months of dead blog air, no one comes back. But it's for me. Ok so I have been consumed with FB and now I'm twitter fabulous. I have "met" some awesome truly fanatical womens soccer fans. WOOP. SOme make me laugh and its so fun finding an underground group of soccer spazzes who love the US womens national team as much as i do. maybe more, b/c they actually fly to see games and I DVR them and ignore their tweets until I catch up on the game. SO it's a WORLD CUP year! 2011! year of the German hosted Womens' event. So being sippyworldcup I do feel a sense of duty to get back to blogging. It's soo 2001. which brings me to another fact. I have been blogging for 10 years, well if you don't hold that one year of non blogging against me. Pretend I went to jail and I am back and all rehabilitated. sweet. And we are selling our house. I won't tell you where it is and I'm not insane enough to post it on Foursquare and have everyone follow me. I do have limits people. So I watched the US women beat Japan 2-0. It was a pretty enjoyable win until my favorite player Lindsay Tarpley came in (YAY) and then blew out her knee. I don't know Tarp, but I do feel close enough to call her Tarp and to know when she came up and winced up at the sky that something VERY VERY bad had happened. I have that sort of connection to her. And we won't mention that this is not the first knee injury that kept her off the team for a few years. I do feel sick about it and I will blame this coach for it, these knee injuries weren't as rampant before this Pia came along. Some stats for me to work on. and just to keep you up to date. kids:2, stevenjr:6, carlinB:2.75.

Well, there it is. I ripped the bandaid off, the gag-order, the writers block whatever it was that kept me from talking about soccer and being a mom watching soccer. I haven't even covered topics like "Is this what Landon Donovan's mom felt like" after steven scored 4 goals in a game last Fall. No matter that he trudges to the field and putting his cleats on is akin to a prison guard putting a lockdown on the yard. There's always kid #2!!!

Happy Earth Momma - you too Mother Nature

2010-04-22T18:26:00.004-05:00

ok. imagine that. I return to blogging and here it is a lil ode to Earth Momma herself. I won't bother you with playing catchup. Let's just pretend we are the kind of old friends that can not see eachother for years, and just pick back up where we left off. Hopefully spitting wine out of our noses and pretending to forget that mullet you had in high school. I mean me. Or was it you. Anyway, today was Earth Day at the park where Carlin(20 months - for those of you playing at home) and Steven jr (4.90). Carlin fell off 3 structures during my intense Earth saving garbage bag holding 5 seconds. One fall resulted in blood. all over her face, cute shirt and my arm and sleeve. (get home and find out that she chomped her TONGUE!! open!!! EEEWWW!) I know it sounds harsh but I wanted to wipe it off my arm first, but there was a mom watching me and I tended to Carlin first. Oh yeah, all that therapy you spend being the "SECOND" born? Well worth it, sorry but #1 sibling got the best and I'm sorry but #2 can be a bit of an annoyance. I know what you are thinking, wow, she is evil and shouldn't have children. But next year is kindergarten for Steven and all those hours of free time: 8:30am - 3:10pm will be spent completely focused on #2...or maybe I will find a game better than bejeweled to fill my void hours. So I finally strapped Carlin into a stroller and pushed her while I grabbed garbage from this park. There were other moms there - thank God, really you think I do this on my own? And I ran across a pair of completely nasty "purchased white" underpants, but I left them. I do have standards here! Earth momma and all but there is no way I am picking up dirty underwear from a Sunday BBQ gone bad. Plus the police might need to return for evidence.

On the allergy front, We tried a new one with Carlin, Dr Simpson in Falls Church and I loved him! YAY!!! Finally a doc that understands the need for INFORMATION TRANSFER. So 3 hours later in his office and I'm excited! We try wheat trials for Carlin this week!!! Steven goes in 5 weeks later and I'm hopeful!!!

My biggest loser competition with K, J, J, M and A starts tomorrow. So clearly, I will eat and drink tonight until my stomach literally pops a third child. Allergy Count: Carlin -milk, dog(not the eating kind), sesame, spring/fall seasonal allergies, soy, peanut, tree nuts: 7, Steven jr - peanuts, treenuts: 2.

what did I miss?

2010-01-28T23:21:00.002-05:00

ok. yeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh, were gonna have to let you go. no just kidding. im trying to think of ways to explain my absence. maybe i can blame baby carlin(now 18 months old!) being allergic to what i loving refer to as EVERYTHING! WHEAT, MILK, SESAME. it was a tough time and since i was seemingly committed to the cause of breastfeeding...I was not a happy camper and became a beast. Anyway, in walked mistress of the dark facebook and ficemook fell in love. But how could I walk away with a mere 3 posts til 500. the magic 500th post! the one people dream about logging right before their book deal is announced. i dunno. i got feet. maybe felt like a failure. maybe i didnt think i was funny anymore. and there was no public outcry. like seriously NONE. no one even asked, hey about that blog. nope. not til my lovely sisinlaw mentioned in a very nonthreathing email... that my blog was covered in photobucket "you kicked the bucket" error messages. so im back. and im feeling like my one liners on FB are just that. like the last gasp of breath. and now that everyone is there, im feeling bloggy. so BABY IM BACK! now i will work on filling you in on some carlin updates. i dont want her to look back and see all the press that steven jr got, while she well...disrupted my gastro-happiness. 2010 is interesting. joined a gym and now i got meself a personal trainer. i no longer want migraines after soccer and i want to be fit. so here it goes!!! months since last post:11, longest in ficemook history. RIP JDS.

misstery manners

2009-03-05T09:49:00.002-05:00

ok. you know its bad when you learn about etiquette from the real housewives of orange county. It's even crazier when you watch the new season of the real housewives of NYC and you learn even more. Funny, they didn't cover the whole boobie in your face implants of orange county etiquette but im thinking that the ladies on that show could teach that class instead of paying some pearled uptight mim to school them on that. so my sister and i were appalled with how awful we are with table manners...not truly horrible...but leaning into your plate is a huge No-NO and that's how we eat. i totally lean in like the prisoner to my right might try to swipe a chunk of my pasta. so I am really- REALLY trying to sit up straight proper. like the southern belle i am learning to be. I was glad that I knew the proper fork positioning and the way to eat bread and butter.(which i do actually spend a lot of time eating!) So I watch these total trash shows and then last week at MOPS we had a lesson on etiquette which was cool b/c she actually taught us about the origins. So it's good to know that true etiquette was to keep the peasants in line. and i am nothing if not a peasant! A quick look at the calendar has alerted me that I have less than a month to prepare for outdoor soccer. And a true look at the calendar reveals that I haven't played outdoor soccer in TWO years. UGH. UGH. along with the 20 extra pounds of baby-creating flesh I am carrying around. this is a recipe for disaster. see previous post about wii-fit injury. I should be out jogging instead of here blogging with my coffee, but I am so over Facebook right now. so i am back in the blog world. days til april: 31, jogging hours needed: 62.

half year mark!

2009-02-07T09:17:00.000-05:00

ok. it's the six month birthday for Carlin B! yahoooo. It happens to coincide with baby's daddy's birthday! wahooooo - steveO! so carlin's 6 month appointment went off without a hitch, unless you consider $346 eczema foam a hitch! EEEYIKES. it's ok as the good doctor gave me a card to get it for free, but still. I don't know that I can handle that price tag! the new liquid gold for babies! Well, as you can read, her food allergies are still crazy, it's just now i have a foam to put on it and it magically makes it disappear! like AWESOME! so that has me a bit concerned about what exactly I am smearing all over her body. Now if it will only cure her wild scratching! I feel so bad for the baby that can't sleep through the night b/c she is waking up madly scratching! so we are holding off the food til her face is really clear. oh the joys of being a moomoo cow. Now onto soccer news - the Womens Professional Soccer League will be starting this spring and to say I am excited is an understatement. Honestly, you know I wish Mia would just come out of retirement - at least to be a coach or analyst. it's just going to seem so amateur to me without her there. So you will be hearing alot about the Washington Freedom here and hopefully I can keep track of how Carli Lloyd is doing too. I wonder if they will have a fantasy league like they did for WUSA? This also means that this spring I will be heading to Maryland and watching these gals kick the ball around. And hopefully, baby Carlin can enjoy it as a baby. You got to start them early! 6 month baby weight: 18 lbs, weight %: 80, decrease %: 10.

praying blood sucking nurses

2008-12-07T12:33:00.003-05:00

ok. so remember when i was complaining about baby Carlin's skin? Well... looks like it had nothing to do with cradle crap AND everything to do with mother's MILK. Thinking this might be the case, I voluntarily gave up coffee and chocolate...UUUGH! one look at little miss and doctor H says, uhhh - we need a blood test. I'm like oh yeah. great. then I get down to the lab where the flewbottomless, makes the sign of the cross- i shit you not and says let's hope this is easy. while I try to process what she means...and hold down a screaming baby in a vulcan death hold... I realize she is actually praying that she (the nurse) has God on her side and can get blood out of the tiny veins of a baby... NOT just a random christian moment. and VOILA! the blood starts flowing on her first try. and then miss bloodsucker exclaims" thank you jesus!" and makes the sign of the cross again. HELLO. way to scare the hell out of me! While she is doing the happy dance, I am freaking out about what miss Carlin can be allergic to...drum roll...5 days later... SESAME SEEDS! WTF. happens to be my favorite bagel and one that i actually CRAVED while preggers. and hummos is like my version of butter. so apparently i consume enough sesame seeds to creat a LOW allergy for miss C. EEEOUCH! Im so sick of food allergies. I really really am. 4 month weight: 16 lb, 1 oz(93%). 4 month height: 25.25"(85%)

three months

2008-11-07T23:26:00.001-05:00

ok. Carlin is 3 months old! yay. how did that sneak up on me? she was just born! and this month is a doctor free month. so no weigh-in although you know i weighed her anyway. over 14 pounds. yikes! brother bill, auntie laura and cousin J-Bomb are on their way here for a fun weekend. it's billy's bday and somehow he and Steve got tix for the CAPS. So I decide to take Laura to J.Gilberts and enjoy some steak with the old foogies. It's so fun watching a 3 year old have hero worship with a 7 year old. And in case this is useful information to you, 7 year old boys do not create their Wii Mii as the image of themself. They take the liberty to create their own cartoon self which looks nothing like themself. Why am i so stuck playing by the rules and trying to create the perfect cartoon fatty? mount vernon admission: $12, chasing a 3 year old through a national landmark: priceless

two months with two kids = 1000

2008-10-07T23:17:00.006-05:00

ok. back-dated for your pleasure! so i informed Carlin's baby doc that she cursed my baby at one month. b/c now she has some nasty baby acne/cradle cap and her complexion is a mess. one hot mess. bumps everywhere and i don't like it. i also don't want to take pictures of this so there aren't many pics of her at all and so now im already starting carlin on her "why my mom sucks" blog fodder. ugh - i had issues with steven and his cradle cap. and i dont want to deal with it this time. so as i am trying to find a two month picture of sweet C. it is hard. and i dont want to admit that i haven't taken any. oooh. but the weather was amazing the other day and i threw her in this dress that she will never ever fit in again and that is a shame b/c she is so cute! she is smiling now. which is so amazing and worth every minute i spend being totally goofy just to get that one smile. Auntie KK is here to celebrate her 36th birthday. or at least she is here to celebrate her wii fit age. which is 36. and no i am not older than she is - we are 12 years apart. but when wii tells you that you are as fit as a 36 year old. you drop 49 in an instant. carlin's weight: 12 ib,4oz(83%), carlin's height: 23.5"(90%).

gimme a J

2008-10-01T23:50:00.000-05:00

ok. so the adventures in potty training a boy haven't really been covered here too much. mostly b/c i started this major undertaking 2 weeks before i was to give birth to my sweet carlin. and even though we are in the midst of week 10 of potty training - and i nearly went broke buying all the Pee and then later POOP toys- i thought of it as a success. but this last week we have been having DAILY "accidents". and when i say accidents i mean - pissing all over the floor. Not the accidents one might think of when running to the bathroom in an "effort" to pretend that they potty trained. so I hear the voice..."MooooM" and I know what that means. pee filled thomas the train briefs and soaked shorts. But this time there was a twist. Steven jr comes running to get me announcing "IT'S A J, it's a J!!!" and I know everyone loves the alphabet song, but really? now we are pissing the alphabet song.
letters left to piss: 25, weeks of not cleaning man poop from a 3 year olds size 6 diaper: 10.

waa waa

2008-09-13T23:00:00.001-05:00

ok. I don't know if its a lack of sleep- but sometimes I look at Carlin and see stuff I shouldn't. Like the time I told Grammy that baby C's head was like an aliens. not a cute one. the kind with the monster cone and big black eyes. Then last night, I swear, I saw John McCain. Enough to the point where I thought I should send an image to the National Enquirer and report that John's boys can still swim. So, yeaaah, its the sleep deprivation. I don't mean to be an ahole, it's the lack of sleep. We have been having a week of baby up = baby cry. baby eat= baby happy. baby down to sleep = 1 minute of calm and then baby cry. repeat cycle. Here's my mantra. It's all I ever wanted. Leave it to the go-go's to be my gurus. My other new mantra is: one day at a time. Here is a pic of Carlin showing her - just wait...I'm gonna cry - face.

And can you believe that someone at SteveO's office asked him if we named her after George Carlin? like - are you for fuckin real?
most hours of sleep in a row:3.5.

this little piggy wants breast milk

2008-09-12T13:40:00.002-05:00

ok. if I could find the image from a month ago when we got home from the hospital - you would not believe that this is the same baby. This baby here has gained 2 lbs and 3 oz since her 2 week doc appt. This baby shown here eats like there ain't no tomorrow. It was a lot easier to nurse with only 1 baby. even if I thought the words nurse and easy had no place in a sentence together. Now - add a 3.25 year old boy who thinks the world revolves around his needs. Which of course, i can hardly blame him, as of 5 weeks ago- IT DID. Carlin by all accounts has been a DREAM baby. we are blessed to have her. fur shur. but man, two is hard.
weight at 1 month visit: 9lbs, 6oz, weight Percentage: 75, up 50%!!!

happy one month baby C!

2008-09-07T18:20:00.004-05:00

ok. I know I know it's been a whole month and I have little bloggin to show for it. And i really have no excuse except for maybe a 1 week postpartum overnight in the hospital. with baby. but i was the patient. then on bedrest for a week. and taking blood pressure medicine for my postpartum pre-eclampsia. woops. AND the Olympics were on. And even after the US secured the gold medal and Carli Lloyd scored the winning goal - I still didnt blog. And even after Carli Lloyd dumped me from her Facebook friends list. I wasn't STALKING! honest! yet, I still didn't blog. But when Grammy leaves after being the UBER grandma for a WHOLE month - I find time to blog. AND we lost power today. for about 3 hours. and i am understanding the idea that we need a generator. no power = no fun. But baby Carlin has her first playdate tomorrow morning with baby Bridget who is one week her elder. I better get the bon-bons ready! Oh yeah- dont forget to watch Oprah tomorrow b/c she will have the us womens soccer team and their gold plated cha-ching to show off - along with a bunch of other US athletes no one knows. GO USA! days til carlin's 1 month visit: 2, days a week steven jr is in his new Catholic preschool: 5. go GOD!

future olympian

2008-08-12T15:15:00.010-05:00

ok. Here SHE is. Carlin. Gaelic for "little champion" - how fitting for an arrival the day before the Olympics! Which allowed momma to watch Carli Lloyd score for the US vs Japan to win 1-0. Hello NAMESAKE. what else am i to do in the hospital at 5 in the morning waiting to get my blood pressure taken for the 800th time.

born: 08.07.08
time: 3:47pm
weight: 7lb, 3oz

height: 20"

and the happy big brother stevenjr, is more than happy to hold Carli all day long.

U.S.ugh

2008-08-06T14:41:00.004-05:00

ok. so i ran downstairs for kickoff at 7:45am. it took all of 5 minutes to be completed devastated. so the US women lost 2-0 to Norway, a team that they beat 4-0 just about a month ago. and since this is supposed to be a soccer blog - i will finally put some thoughts down.

kate markgraf really blew that second goal- ow. i think she has been doing a lot of bad passing lately.
tarpley was doing pretty good so i was surprised to see her taken off for AROD.
I would've switched to a 3-4-3 WAY earlier than we did.
Heather O had a solid game but I still wish she was up front.
i have to admit - I did miss Abby Wambach and felt like she could/would have made a difference. ouch.
I wish Aly Wagner got to play and show why she is on the team.
Not so sure starting Ang Hucles was the way to go.
I REALLY REALLY liked Brandi Chastain's commentary - and I have to say she was WAY better than Julie Foudy. I think her soccer knowledge and EPL knowledge really showed through. bravo.
I REALLY thought the US would at least TIE the norway gals. Norway didn't look unsurmountable.
ugh- it sucks to be at the bottom of the group.
I hope they can freaking BLOW OUT Japan.
is it too late to get Mia Hamm out of retirement? im just saying...
I really wish Leslie Osbourne was playing instead of Shannon BOXX. sorry shannon, you did nothing for the red white and blue.
thank god i got to watch the game in HD, b/c the EFFING tivo recorded 2 hours of msnbc news---- no soccer --- although the tivo listing said soccer. MOFO!

so there, since none of my friends actually took the day off or time to watch, i am left alone with my broiling mind.

oh yeah, and I *think* I am officially having real deal contractions. either that, or my spicy KRAPAO is coming to haunt me in lower back/stomach tightening moments. so go ahead and plan to watch the US vs Japan on Saturday at 5am. yeah baby- FIVE AM. minutes from hospital: 12, hours til my OB of choice ends her rotation for today: 4.

reproduction updates...

2008-08-05T22:20:00.004-05:00

ok. so I know everyone out there is skipping work tomorrow am, so they can tune into the US women kicking some soccer booty against Norway. 7:45am. it's totally on HD too. My only possible hiccup would be if my future mia hamm decides to pop out tomorrow am. right now, that's my biggest worry. 10:15 water breaking would be cool, not so much pre- 7:30. today's appt with doc porter revealed labor is progressing. woot woot! which means soon we will be a party of 4. i hope my little man of 3 can handle the new task. I keep emphasizing how much a newborn cries. I don't want any smoke being blown here. And because I didn't really think it was enough to be 38 weeks preggers in August in VA, I decided to start potty training jr last thursday. so on day 6, we are doing pretty good. no PEE accidents in 4 days. clean and dry. BUT the pooping aspect is another story. with 2 playdates in the last 2 days, stevenjr has preferred to just let it rip in his underpants. oops. in a futile attempt to induce labor, beaner and i went to the Thai Square Restaurant for some incredible FOOD. I think it has been 7 years since I have been to this place, and I can't really figure out why. It was friggin AWESOME. and hotter than a hoot owl. I did actually break into a sweat. ahhhhh...perhaps a last dinner? effaced: 50%, dialation: 3cm.

Wii the people

2008-07-31T20:55:00.004-05:00

ok. so june came and went. WOOOSH. which includes my first trip to UVA(so fun!), my 25th (again?!)birthday, then JULY came wooshing in and it was off to Long Beach Island, Outer Banks and then back to VA for my medically sanctioned no-more-travel mandate. oh yeah, im still pregnant. which is amazing considering what I have been able to accomplish this summer. Back when I was preggers with Steven I turned into a ginormous watermelon and swelled to epic proportions. i still remember beaner calling my feet - hobbit feet. and she wasn't being mean. it was the damn truth. THIS pregnancy is a whole different ball of wax. I have only gained 16 pounds - at week 37. WOAH. not that I started off like Nicole Kidman or anything, but that's all I needed to gain to brew a 7 pounder. sooo who knows how my little girl sumo is going to weigh. the induction date is set. AUGUST 13th. not the 08.08.08 i envisioned, but 08.13.08 has a certain charm to it too. the only thing cooler would be a 08.11.08 birthdate - since her big bro has the 05.11.05 date. i like symmetry! and to announce my video gaming coming out party!!!!! I got a Wii. I got a Wii. it's kinda hard to play when you don't have any good balance and there is a large basketball stuffed in your shirt... but what i see i love! i AM so getting Wii fit when i pop this babycakes out and are cleared for exercise. b/c let me tell you people, i am currently rocking a 68 year old fitness age, and that's well, just plain embarrassing. days til 1st olympic us womens soccer game: 6, goals Kai and ARod must score: 10.

welcome to the world of 3

2008-05-11T20:05:00.002-05:00

ok. so it is birthday time at the Stevenjr castle. Don't mind me if it so in fact is combined with MY MOTHER'S DAY! Which has quickly become a day almost as important as MY birthday. But apparently when you have a house full of guests and you are trying to throw the perfect 3 year old party - it is most certainly NOT an appropriate time to stay in your robe all day with your magic bedazzled wand and take a luxurious bath with all your most favorite and hoarded girlee bath lotions. BUT that's what I do on Mother's day, I pamper myself--- after sleeping in and i awake to SteveO making the french toast I quietly demanded/announced must be made in the morning. to hell with the kid with egg allergies. oh right, this post was not about me and my brattiness it is about having a boy turn 3. so where was i. oh yeah, he is 3. and 3 is not 2. which is nice, but boy if i thought 2 was hard, hahha, THREE is way hard. Now he has all these OPINIONS. can you imagine? a dude with opinions, that comes up to your waist. lots of questions. lots of negotiating. lots of time to be spent in law school honing these interrogation skills he has acquired...from... Dora? Blues Clues? Backyardigans? And the theme this year was backyardigans, which he kinda picked out himself at the party store, after I veered him away from the CARS stuff. I mean he was having a himbo party and his guests were mostly 3 year old girls. I dont think they would have appreciated lightning mcqueen over UNIQUA! hours in labor: 18, jr's years on earth:3, jr's current fighting weight in pounds: 38.

who's happy to win the bronze?

2008-05-08T15:21:00.003-05:00

ok. if anything could be more clear for me, it was this article in the masslive.com on my hometown coming in 3rd for recycling. EL...Proud to be third There you have it, in a nutshell. Not pissed off that we aren't #1. happy to be third. that is the mentality instilled in East Longmeadow public schools. mediocrity reigns! balloons ordered: 14, backyardigan decorations: 10, egg-free cupcakes to be made: 24.

it's not you, it's me

2008-05-06T14:09:00.002-05:00

ok, maybe it's a little you. comments do motivate a gal! anyway, if bart simpson had a blog, he would be at the chalkboard writing..."i will not blog if i don't have anything to say". yeah i haven't really had much to say. but i have been thinking of you! and today, although I am topic-less. I have a clean house and a napping soon to be 3 year old. so isn't that in itself worth a post? yeah baby, it's cleaning day and Dennis, Marisol and her other rather unfriendly pal were all here to clean up the house. im not ashamed. i am most definitely, domestically challenged. just like the cocktail napkins that irene gave me said. in fact, if we were to have to reexamine our budget to get some items paid off... i think I can stop drinking ISSE's sodas and ben & jerry's before I would say buh-bye to my gals. of course, since every other Monday night, when I have to prepare for the "cleaning ladies", by running around the house pre-bathtime gathering all the crap that got out of place in the last two weeks... stevenjr must pick up on my anxiety/ expectant bliss... as soon as he sees their van pull up in the morning -he starts shrieking "THE CLEANING LADIES ARE HERE!!!" and runs around the house until they ring the doorbell. that's ok, right? i mean, they are cleaning ladies, but why am i embarrassed for him to call them that to their face? ugh. I wonder if i can get social security benefits for being domestically disabled. that could subsidize our budget... yeah and going back to work, that is another idea.

so i never did post - but our trip to NAPLES Florida. WAS FAN-FFFFFing-TASTIC. babymoon, honeymoon, beachymoon... whatever you call it, it was awesome and needed. we actually got to hang out without thinking about a diaper or an egg allergy!!!! we stayed at the edgewater hotel and beach club. oceanfront! it was so sweet. i highly recommend that place. we sat under umbrellas, i read all my beach chicklit novels, drank water and steve did sudoku and drank gin & tonics. we totally fit in with the retired over 60 set! and the other set were massachusetts mom & dads with 2.1 children overtaking the pool. it was nice, and no one really bothered me! which is amazing for being with the public for 5 days. it was prime people watching. i listened to tons of beach chat and played "nanny or mommy?" with steve. that was fun. I almost dropped my book when I heard a 5 year old boy call for his mommy when we had already completely put her in the nanny box. man, she was a knockout and totally didnt look like a tired-rundown-flabby-mommy. i almost went up and told her, but then decided i had been out of massachusetts too long, if i was contemplating chatting with a stranger. with my maternity suit on - no less!

so here we are in VA- getting ready to celebrate stevenjr's 3rd bday. it's pretty nutso. 3. THREE years ago - i popped him out and Im 3 months away from popping another one out. YYYIIIIKES. our backyard is being prepared for a new playset and now that the tree men are gone and the sound of global-warming has ceased, we are ready to have a fun backyard... i guess i need to go plant a tree for the 4 that were removed. is it a 1-1 facotr for replacement? or can a dead tree actually be good for the environment.

latest cravings: thin crust pizza from pie-tanza- with spinach and ricotta. SMORES. and you bet the fixins are in my pantry.

days til the imp is 3: 5, party decorations purchased: 0, 3 year old girl invitees who rsvped YES: 2.

refused by loser

2008-04-07T23:56:00.000-05:00

ok. so IF memphis won, I would be $100 richer. But if memphis won, then Coach Cal would find a pure happiness. One that he LEFT UMASS to seek. F him. so for that I throw my $100 towards those kansas fans. fly free jayhawk! that's sounds... bitter. yah, also having to deal with UMASS lose to Ohio state in the NIT Final, makes it worse. boyyah. sue me coach cal! here's to your copyright!

REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE REFUSE TO LOSE.

games my HS Basketball team won in my senior year: 0, woops?

It's a ...

2008-04-03T13:59:00.003-05:00

ok. GIRL. and like cash registers cha-chinging in my eyes - all i see is PINK.

I also only see MIA HAMM posters and pink nike cleats. but if she is my daughter then most likely she won't be able to wear nikes b/c her fred flinstone feet are too dang wide. and I *think* I'm the mother.

THINK PINK!

I hope my OB has a manual.
next ultrasound(in days):3, possible defect to recheck: 1. OMG!

march spazzness

2008-03-25T13:34:00.005-05:00

ok. sooo i see someone out there thinks perhaps a girl is on the horizon? eek. love your google searches! anyway, i forgot to write about this but as a new egg-is-evil mommy, I am never sure what is going to happen from week to week. like dr seuss has a birthday in march and stevenjr's preschool decides to celebrate. yay? NAY! such a simple harmless idea. until the brilliant teach decides to celebrate said event by cooking GREEN EGGS N HAM. WTF? to a bunch of 2 year olds that are actually frightened by those scary characters! now I have to contend with my son being in a room full of egg eaters? Does she not understand what an allergy is? does she not see the Epi-pen jr in his bag - each and everytime they change a diaper? and for full disclosure, im a pretty wimpy person. not really into conflict and not really into confrontation. so at first im like No EFFING way, im not bringing my kid in there with all those evil-doers. then I decide i should ask a momma-bear mom friend and turns out, i need to call the teacher and say WTF - as pleasantly as possible. eek. so the day before this egg massacre is to happen, I am working my way up to the dreaded phone call. but the phone rings! and its the teacher! woot! i almost didn't answer! (an affliction i developed back in my technical support days, when i was sick of talking to angry a-hole customers who didn't understand our ridiculous software.) but I realized this was my chance and i answered! such a nice little convo. turns out that she had thought better of subjecting steven to this egg contest and decided to make mashed potatoes for him and she promised to have a teacher sit with him one-on-one and make sure he didn't go mooching off the others or god-forbid dumpster diving(come on, all boys have a thing for trash barrels, right?). so it was all shits and giggles here. i didn't have to confront - but i got to be a little bitchy, by saying i was keeping him home. so she felt bad and fixed the problem with a solution that worked. ahhhh the joys of parenthood. this is not recommended on an empty, sober stomach. So we are gearing up for our mid April travels to Florida.

we got to see march madness in full effect on Saturday. apparently people really hate DUKE around here(maybe everywhere outside of DUKE campus?) not going to an ACC school, it is lost on me, but since I had duke beating WVU, I wore a new bright blue maternity shirt to the game. thinking really- of course they win! then i get to my seat and am surrounded by west virginia fans! screaming go mountaineers. I kept asking steve if they were really saying mousekateers b/c it really does sound the same in a group yell. most of my row was UVA fans and they apparently really HATE DUKE. so I sat quietly and clapped for any GOOD basketball plays. which there were many. I didn't want to anger the moonshine crowd from the mountains of WV - in case they didn't see my huge preggo belly - who knows - they may hit first and look for signs of pregnancy second. Any while we are talking about it, have you seen the WVU mascot? It's a mountaineer. but its not a big headed fuzzy mascot. it's a DUDE. in a brown getup - complete with coonskin hat and rifle. ok? it sucks and its odd. get a puffy headed mascot will ya?!
In my mind, the Xavier game was much more fun. Even though there was an enormous obese man behind me yelling LET'S GO X, every time they were on offense. I can't fault some one for alumni spirit - but try yelling up to God instead of directly into the back of my head. NCAA games are dry, so steveO didn't get to enjoy any brews, but I made up for it by having, a water, a coke, a pretzel and DIPPIN DOTS! yahoo. so tune into ESPN tonight to see the UMASS minutemen (with puffy-headed mascot) beat the snot out of the Syracuse oranges. days to sex identification: 6, chances its a girl: 50-50, chances its a boy: 90-10.

cleanup in aisle 23!

2008-03-14T07:53:00.005-05:00

ok. so the trip is planned. we are off to Naples Florida, despite my preconceived thoughts of its blue hair inhabitants fleeing the Northeast for hibernation season. so thanks for all your advice. either my readership wouldn't be caught dead in Florida for vacation or I have no readership. I hate to imagine that everyone is so callous to ignore requests for comments and advice, but...

today is a BIG day. BIG as in GIANT!!! THE SUPER GIANT IS FINALLY OPEN!!! It opened at 6am. But I won't stroll in until about 10:30. I may even dance down the aisles. I am so excited about this grocery store opening that I cant really explain the phenomenon. There will be balloons, door prizes and face painting! move over kids, i wanna be a tiiiiiiiger! To imagine driving to a store in 3 minutes makes me soooooo happy! I might even high 5 the produce dude. At what age do parents allow their rugrats to roam free in the supermarche? I can not even imagine - well i kinda can- if i let steven free. he would have ripped everything off the newly stocked shelves and would be tearing open the chips and biting each and every apple in the joint. yet, i still see these little lambs walking alongside their mom calmly, not even squirming or whining! WTF! what's in their water supply?

People keep asking me what I have been craving, and well, that's not true actually, b/c people are scared to approach me as I still do not LOOK pregnant, still in fat mode...so anyway, what I have been craving is SESAME SEED BAGELS! yum, with plain cream cheese. so delicious.

current travel time to closest grocery store(in minutes): 10, new travel time: 3.

procrastinaaaaaaaaa SHUN

2008-03-10T13:23:00.002-05:00

ok. so it's about an hour away from my M-I-L's arrival and I'm sitting here online. the bed she is to sleep on is covered with laundry. The sofa in the TV room has a few more piles of laundry, the kitchen is a disaster, and I haven't found a rub to put on my organic chicken I bought at TJoes. Sound like a normal M0nday? Why aren't I cleaning? B/C today is rip-your-pants-and-diaper-off MONDAY and it was followed by wear-your-new-underpants Monday Afternoon- even though you aren't potty trained and you could care less if you sat around in wet cotton tightee whitees. Plus, my internet was down this AM and I had to reset the router all on my lonesome. woo! I met a new mom today at stevenjr's preschool. she had this amazing french accent and I wanted her to invite me to her home and drink wine and eat cheese, but of course you can't exactly ask someone you JUST met such a thing, and I'm not drinking red wine b/c of the Surgeon General's advice. So I just wanted to let you know that I am here. and now scared out of my mind to drink the town water ---"Pharmaceuticals, along with trace amounts of caffeine, were found in the drinking water". Um hello. Now that explains my lack of seizures and miraculous fix of my Urinary tract infection. Who knew you could get all these benefits from water! So Im going to look into the poland spring delivery! my favorite water! chinese food delivery: $ 30.00, delicious factor: 0.

momnesia - who are you again?

2008-03-06T15:56:00.003-05:00

ok. March 31st. mark it down on your calendar. That is the day I will find out the sex of my to-be-named baby. is it vajayjay land? or is it more penis world? there are bets on it being a girl b/c of the difference in my morning sickness this time around. im actually scared though of a vajayjay, even though I am a lifetime owner. This is not the same as a HONDA vs a HYUNDAI. I do have a couple nieces who i changed numerous diapers for, but really, my vast experience has been babysitting boys. the penis is not complicated. it's all right there in your face. easy to clean. but I do not think I want to deal with the alternative. but of course, a girl would supply me with a shopping partner for life and access to mother daughter nights, an a future Women's National Team star. one more boy and I will be the only one on Team Estrogen on cedar brook. sheesh! not sure I can handle that! and i think steven would have more fun with a brother. but a baby girl with an older brother is bound to be an olympic success. ask any professional female athlete---usually she has an older brother to credit the success. unless of course you are a runner. those people have it inside themselves. sunny days in a row: 3, happiness factor: 100%

send in the clowns

2008-03-05T14:59:00.003-05:00

ok. so with our impending party of four, steveO and I are trying to find a quick but sunny and fun destination while stevenJR is wearing out grammy & grandDAD. Well, wouldn't you know it but my passport expired in 2006. oops. so out goes our Turks & Caicos plans... in comes...US virgin islands? hmmm. im not sure, but it might have to be Florida. which doesn't sound all that exotic. but it's the sun and a nice beach chair that I am really after. To further announce to the world my "knockedUP-ness" I am on the hunt for a maternity suit. Preferrably, one that doesn't scream, "I had too many donuts at the buffet" rather one that screams "look at that svelte breeder". So that being said, I will gladly take any recommendations on luxurious Florida destinations with beachfront property, pool, spa and shuffleboard(does that make me sound 70?). I don't know what it is - but I'm jonesing for some shuffleboard... many mini-golf will do? Algarve Cup update - US Women vs. China: 4-0. GO USA!!

TA DA!!!

2008-03-02T20:33:00.002-05:00

ok. so for 16 weeks I have been withholding from you, b/c to be honest I needed to know for sure before I announced the wonderful news. No sense on harping on two miscarriages in SIX months. No need to bore you with progesterone suppositories for 10 weeks, no need to put you on pins and needles!!! hurray. Special thanks to my bro BK who edited my cartoon Peekay so that I wasn't cocktailing while preggo. *sheesh* he could've made the boobies bigger! Come on people, I could save the titanic with these things! And you might have noticed, I haven't blogged about many soccer stories, b/c this new OB/GYN told me to sit it out until we felt confident and then it was too late to start back up. hhah! I was duped! DUE DATE: 08.16.08, wishful thinking DUE DATE: 08.08.08.

Leap Year Antics

2008-02-29T09:38:00.004-05:00

ok. Happy eFFing leap year. how much would THAT suck. a birthday every four years. I can see it, Feb 28th rolls around and then bam it's March 1st and your pain in the a$$ brother tells you that you can't have a birthday party. because. it.isn't.your.birthday. the little shit. I would crack under the pressure and probably have leap year massacres staged throughout the PartyLands of the Eastern Seaboard. but thankfully, my birthday is in JUNE. JUNE 25th. thank you. so i empathize with those poor leap year sacks. i had a teacher in elementary school. Mrs. Kahn who had a leap year birthday and was she ever a miserable woman. so there you have my inconclusive proof that leap year sucks the birthday spark out of all involved.

obviously, i have had too much coffee this morning.

This has been a big week! I went to a movie. in a movie theater. in a mall. and got to shop at nordstrom shoes before. it was amazing! I highly recommend getting out of the house without a rugrat. I felt alive!! Juno was good, very funny, but I could have seen Constantine and thought it was good. Damn are milkduds tasty! Can you believe that old school TRETORNS in canvas no less, are selling for $70. SEVENTY!!! shitski. I should have stored 50 pairs for the $20 spot BOB'S SURPLUS used to sell them for.

time since last movie experience: 2.5 years, cost of movie at tyson's: $10.50, popcorn,coke,milkduds: $8.75.
*since when are SNACKS cheaper than ticket!

alone in your car

2008-02-04T22:54:00.000-05:00

ok. one reason monday mornings are great is b/c i get to drop off stevenjr at preschool and drive alone. driving alone is a thrill. especially b/c i got an iPOD 7 months ago. i get some semblance of a music life back. so is it scary to hear that when I got into the Giant Supermarket parking lot - 7 MINUTES - of driving alone time and I found myself SINGING to the doodlebops CD? yeah. i went - holy shit - i have lost my mind. shoot.me.now. as if the image isn't scary enough, i included one for those of you who are doodlebops-ignorant. you are the blessed ones. even though my new england roots are deep, tom brady made me mad and im glad he got his a$$ handed to him. take that you absent baby's daddy. too bad bridget moynahan didn't name their son George Ian Anthony Neil Tyree (GIANT) b/c that would have stung more than J.E.T. there's always baby #2.... he may need some consoling when that Victoria's Secret gal dumps his butt. times i sang baby beluga to stevenjr today: 5, american idol applications in mail: 0.

fruit loop poop

2008-01-24T22:20:00.000-05:00

ok. i really didn't know what i was getting myself into, but I needed to introduce a new breakfast item. and when your son can't have real eggs/pancakes/waffles... sometimes i get in a rut in the morning. so i decided that fruit loops would be my answer. mainly *I* wanted them. but then i thought how much would any kid love them. and yes he did. gobbled his first "real" bowl of cereal with milk down. all at the age of 2.66. so yesterday was his first bowl. that was lunch. today was his first breakfast bowl. and today was his first GREEN poop. it was green, not like a little green, BUT SHREK GREEN. and then i was freaked. woah! so a little google search later and apparently it is totally normal to see green poop after a bowl of fruit loops. go figure. no need to rush him to the ER. but maybe i should consult a nutritionist? I'm sick of buying vegan food. it just doesn't taste that good! mattress purchased sunday: 1, delivered:2, returned: 2, three time's a charm?

rise and shine

2008-01-07T13:42:00.000-05:00

ok. i have been sick as a dog. steven caught something fierce in western mass and then coughed and spewed all night into my face. i could actually see the germs CSI style enter my system. eww. so like clockwork i started to feel like shizite on Thursday. and i have no voice. so i haven't been answering the phone. and ordering from the deli counter this morning was not an option. i soft whisper is all i can muster up. which feels like im living in a library. and i cant even effectively parent since all i can do is clap or stomp my feet to stop the toddler monster. so i have a new appreciation for mutes b/c that is a tough life. but it was great to have preschool restart this morning. YEEHAW! this is the first morning in a week where i was positively driven to get up and out the door! freetime! woohoo.

so the redskins play this game that i usually write about how much i hate, but im trying to be the new 2008 version of pk and accept the things i cannot change. so i sat and watched 3 football games this weekend. more so, b/c i was too tired to move to another couch or bed and since SteveO was being super dad/husband i really had no place to switch to MTV so i could catch up on the sweet 16 marathon.is that enough rationalization? I even watched "we are marshall" so i was on a severe emotionally driven football weekend. I participated in high fives and was really excited there for the 15 seconds that they were winning. and since i have no idea what is happening most of the time - i focus on the kicking game. i still can't believe that goof blew that 30 yard kick near the end of the game. it made me wonder how many people are responsible for guiding that guy. do they have fluid dynamics engineers studying the wind ? and if they don't - maybe I should apply for that position, b/c i have no idea what he was thinking. and yes i think i could have made that kick- with no practice kicks.

i can't get enough of those Mac ads.

apparently i see shadow people.

coughing spurts last night: 4, wakeup time: 8am.

the going back home TIME WARP

2008-01-02T11:56:00.000-05:00

ok. it has officially occurred to me that i am old or the politically correct "NOT YOUNG". as in, I still kinda think like a 16 year old thus I thought I was actually still 16. old enough to have a license, but not yet ready to vote. So on my trip up north to EL, we hit the local 99 where obesity is just one appetizer away. It was there that I realized I was OLD. In comes a group of 5 high school girls and I'm looking at them, in my mind I am wondering if I "KNOW" any of them. like they might be in my physics class or something. um hello. im not 16 and i am probably older than their mothers. yet, here i sit thinking they are my contemporaries. then in walks an old geezer with his 35ish son. the son has salt and pepper hair peeking out of his red sox hat. it was then that i realized that HE WAS MORE LIKELY SOMEONE I WOULD KNOW. and man, he was old looking. i literally freaked out. and had to ask my brother how old i looked. he confirmed, i was not 16 anymore. man, pass the nachos - life is over. kids i recognized at local pizza joint: 0, gray speckled haired folks i recognized: 3.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T09:40:00.000-05:00

ok. so its been a while but let's not rehash the past. We are freshly unpacked from our Christmas odyssey. We go to Williamsburg for about 4-5 days and then come home to VA unpack/repack then head to western mass for the new years celebration with the northerners. each and everytime we cross from NYC to CT I feel my heart warm. I just miss New England. I love small towns and this whole VA "county" life just doesn't feel right. It is so nice even as the massholes wizz by me in the slow lane and cut me off. warm and fuzzy people! My nephew Jared is in his second year of hockey which means now they actually scrimmage for 15 minutes. TOO hilarious. I thought it was time for Steven jr to see an ice rink in action so SteveO brought Steven jr to see Jared play. apparently at the end of the scrimmage - steven jr managed to run on the ice and while my brother tried to carry him off he was SCREAMING "I WANT TO PLAY HOC-KEY". now if that didn't just melt my soccer heart. but like I said - he can play whatever sport he wants - he's just got to be great. I know this means i am destined for a sculptor but so what. We drove home from Wilbraham at 6:30am on NEW YEARS DAY. yeah. while everyone was sleeping off their hangover - we were hauling serious A down 91 and 95. it rocked. NO ONE is driving at that hour. going over the George Washington Bridge all alone is so SWEET! highly recommend such a day.

a couple things to mention: i love the writer's strike and i hope it keeps up for a bit. I have been able to catch up on my SLEEP ! and TIVO! sweet. and it has allowed me to watch full seasons of ON DEMAND shows that i would ordinarily skip.hours to western mass:8.5, hours back to VA:6, months without a post: 4.

im so ungreen

2007-10-17T12:12:00.001-05:00

ok. no matter how many light bulbs i change in my house, i am so completely ungreen as of this past labor day weekend. i bought an SUV. yeah, totally. went from an awesome German wagon with amazing gas mileage to a complete SPACE and GAS hog - PK's FJ CRUISER. I can't park anymore. I can't see when I am reversing! BUT Im up HIGH now. I can see people in their cars at red lights. I can roll over a boulder if i want. apparently, this car has a career off road, and let me tell you my little cul-de-sac has some real rugged suburban terrain. not.at.all. I am not making any sense, so you aren't missing something. i lost my rocker and went so ungreen, im like Al Gore at a RAVE. but i look hot in it. or else all these guys really are just looking at my truck. oh yeah, and i bought it in black. my first black car. and now i know why yesterday i saw FIVE black SUVs getting washed, these bitches get dirty fast. and dirty is not a good look for black. dang! Days it took to sell the VW: 7, calls from craigslist($0): 3, call from washingtonpost($50): 0.

where's your momma gone?

2007-09-10T12:55:00.000-05:00

woo. where has the time gone? who knows. the lazy days of summer caught up with me and now im back. so the trip to seattle was good. here is a pic of steven in his pjs at his great grandmothers nursing home. he was a total toddler celeb with the elder set. we survived the whole 4 legged roundtrip flight sequence. And carrying a huge toddler Britax carseat through 4 airports is not fun. There is one lucky lady out there in Dallas, lucky to still have her life i mean. she had some snazzy device that i later found in the skymall catalog which was just a simple metal frame, that you put the monster carseat on and voila. rolling stroller! such a brilliant idea that i was upset i didnt make one myself. so instead i stood in shock as i watched this woman push her perfectly behaved little darling past us. the model of efficiency. meanwhile, i was schlepping an umbrella stroller, soft cooler, backpack, laptop, camera bag and toy/snack duffel. One surefire hit was of course: the thomas the engine roller bag. steven just loved to be part of the roller world. so after i dismounted him onto the jet way out of his stroller, i would hand him the thomas bag and say "follow daddy". so that was the secret. until we hit an empty seat in first class, where he ditched the bag and hopped into the seat next to the startled business man. "AHHH" is what came out of his mouth as his arms stretched out to the armrests. lots of chuckles and a few "he has good taste" comments while i herded him out of the seat and began the walk of shame to the economy class. but the real pisser was that i did have enough miles to have a free seat in first class. but just ONE. arg. so we survived and the trip was great fun. we got to portland to see ash and lance which was as always a great time. and who knew that fisher-price should make a toddler walker to mimic the one great-gma was pushing! matches his shoes! major!! benadryl doses: 3, onboard naps: 4, onboard diaper changes: 3, cocktails: -

catalog tom foolery

2007-08-01T12:24:00.000-05:00

ok. when a baby is a newborn, everyone wants to know, is he sleeping through the night? i am still not exactly sure why this is THE question, but i was asked it by strangers everywhere i went. and to be honest, i feel myself asking other moms this - as ridiculous as i thought the question was. but it's 2 years later, and i still remember those mornings i woke from a full night sleep! yahoo. now its toddler bed time and it's a whole new world. the first 2 weeks were hard. really hard. as in hardly any sleep. but i pulled a trick out of my hat and started closing his door every night. and he started sleeping through the night. it was such a great moment. but last night, i forgot to close his door. boom(hitting the floor), stomp, stomp, stomp, squish(diaper), squish, thump(fell over steve's gym bag), OW!(he is on my head thrashing for a spot on the pillow.) no one mentions that each feat you overcome during child-rearing, there is an equally terrible time coming ahead. here's pottery barn kids WEAK A$$ excuse for a toddler conversion kit. no side rails. just a stump piece of wood to screw into the side. so then i had to get a bed side rail ANYWAY. go figure. i still need to draft an angry letter to PBK since they are the snakes that knew i wouldn't buy the "kit" if i knew it was a stupid slat of wood. and by wood i mean, some manmade cardboard stained to match your ridiculously overpriced crib. but of course, it doesn't keep him contained so i have to put a whole slew of pillows at the edge of the bed so he doesn't reak his neck tumbling over the rail. items bought at target: 12, items needed:1.

that thing you do

2007-07-30T13:15:00.000-05:00

ok. so i am really *TRYING* to go green. I bought the reusable grocery bags, i recycle a bit(hey I am currently limited in what fairfax county will accept), I lowered my amount of zip lock bag use, using less water... but there is this one weird thing that i can't stop doing. Whenever i am at the ATM or gas station pump, I ALWAYS ask for a receipt. ALWAYS. I know that all I am going to do is throw it out, but I feel like it's my stand against the MAN. And if he is trying to save some pennies by not printing my receipt then SCREW him. I guess the enviroment will have to wait til I get over this one. but for now, that's the thing I do. What do you do? days til flight: 10, current temp: 82, chance of rain: 30%.

we are the champions!

2007-07-27T11:01:00.000-05:00

ok. freshly back from a tour of the firehouse. and by freshly, i mean we had to bolt early b/c steven was such a freakin menace. he was so bad. bad bad bad. scream and tantrumming while the rest of the toddler and older set listened patiently to firefighter ben. all steven wanted to do was climb on the trucks and that was not happening until the end of the tour. *SIGH* so after listening to him scream and fuss after 15 minutes- i was feeling embarrassed, i just walked out the door. i was pissed b/c i actually wanted to hear all about the firefighter world. trying live out some sort of Third Watch fantasy.

my O30 women's team won the Free dom Cup a few weeks ago. It was a one day tournament in MD and it was awesome. We even got to walk out at half time at the Wash Free dom game and accept our TINY trophy. and we only got one. I will not make any mention of how many goals i scored(none) or my level of play(horrible), b/c i want to keep this family friendly today.

we have finalized our trip out to seattle in 2 weeks. we are petrified about bringing our toddler non-behaving monster on the flights(plural b/c we have a stop-over in Dallas.). We just might be that couple with the uncontrollable child making national news. It will be scary. I think we will all need to be drugged for this. we get to have steven jr FINALLY meet his great-gma and then we are driving down to Portland to spend some time with Ashley and Lance. we are very excited about this! minus the fear for the plane ride torture chamber. please allow the poop gods to smile down on us during these flights! any advice for plan travel with a wild toddler would be greatly appreciated.

the egg and peanut allergy world is really a crazy place to be. having a healthy snack on the deck the other day, i noticed hot pink splotches appearing on stevenjr's face, so im searching the hummus container looking for the toxin. it wasn't til the NEXT day, that i read the bag of TORTILLA chips and find out that they are fried in PEANUT oil. man, i never would have guessed that even chips can be an enemy!!! arg. of course, that made for a great diarrhea poop that day - so at least I know what caused all his soft poops.

so, i bought a jogging stroller to get myself back into shape. stevenjr thinks its his bike. which is cool, but just by my buying it, i was thinking i was already getting fit. now i need to USE the thing. sheesh.

beckham is finally here, but i can't handle the reality. his game in DC is when we are in seattle. i still can't even believe that i allowed that to happen. i must not be as dedicated as i thought. must improve soccer fanaticism. of course i watched posh spice and her one little reality show. do you think i can get NBC to give us more? i need more!!!! and yes, i do laugh whenever i hear the world major. or how poshy says MAYJAhhr. too funny, for a sweet little pixie.

goals team scored in tourney: 18, goals against: 4, goals from me: 0, avg # of loads of laundry per day: 2.

FRIDAY THE 13th...MOOHAHAH

2007-07-13T15:12:00.000-05:00

ok. i JUST realized that it was F-THE-13th. so i thought i should mention that i have always liked the #13 and growing up, i tried to pick that # for uniforms. loved it. then in highschool i couldn't get it b/c Laurel got it and hey, she was Laurel, i was just a freshman. anyway, today also reminded me that me and my friend sue used to watch ALL the Friday the 13ths together. it was a thing. watch them all. the movies inspired us to put a red friendship bracelet in our tretorn holes. ok. that was just weird. days til soccer tournament: 1, wakeup call: 5:50am.

mommy's crwying...

2007-07-12T13:53:00.000-05:00

ok. so i know that there are at least 2 things that can make me happy. there are others but specifically today we speak of 2. one is exercise(playing soccer) and two is reading. not together of course. so marymary let me borrow her copy of lovely bones as i was complaining about getting through the intellectual read that carl bernstein provides. and it has been bopping around in my bag for a bit. so last night, as i am getting stevenjr's bath ready, i grabbed the book and started to read during bath time. (WHAT? you don't totally ignore your child during a bath?... for the record, i sit facing him - so if he goes under, i can catch him.). So, i am reading and tears are rolling down my face. fast and furious. i get stevenjr out of the bath, dried up, milked and handed him his own book. read it yourself, kid, i got a book to read. wow. he eventually did fall asleep on his own with ernie in his outstretched arm! anyway, i stayed up until 1:15am reading. had to go to sleep at page 248. woke up and was already trying to figure out when i could finish it. so naptime comes and i run upstairs with stevenjr, hand him his book and read on the floor. YAHOOOOOOO. I haven't read a good book in so long! and it was good. and im done! i finished it, i still have time to blog but the laundry is not finished. aren't my literary needs more important than clean underwear? so tonight i have a soccer game, first one of the summer season. and there you have it. two fun things in one day! i should just pack it in and wait for the summer T'storms to roll through town. elasped time since book was opened:19, hours spent sleeping: 7.

it's not you

2007-07-10T10:19:00.001-05:00

ok. it's the beach! it's come between us. first we kicked off the summer on OBX, then we celebrated America's 231st birthday on Long Beach Island, LBI NJ!! we are island hoppers, people! this stay@home business definitely has its rewards. it's been great for my wrists b/c this laptop typing is killing me! but i figured until i had something to tell you, i would leave you with stevenjr showing us how to enjoy a nice goat cheese and sand salad. days til 82 degree heat during tournament: 4, days to train: 2.

american iDULL

2007-06-30T09:33:00.000-05:00

ok. after my parent's 70th bday bash, my sibs and i were all hanging out on the back deck watching the fire and listening to billy's carefully made 70-party-mix when jimmy challenged me to sing. THE BEST I COULD. you see my mom has a great singing voice but we still haven't figured out who inherited that gene. and apparently, it wasn't me. I started singing with the thought that maybe when i was 8 and rejected for the community theater production of ANNIE they made a tragic mistake. so I started with BLACKBIRD(beatles) and when the snickering started, I switched to MEMORIES(from CATS) and then they burst. I thought I was really hitting the high notes. ha. so there you go, you put yourself out there and they slam you like Simon. It felt refreshing, probably like how it would to be one of the crazies on the American Idol rejects. whatever horrible singing DNA my father carries, it apparently killed all the good singing ones.

None of this has stopped me from singing to stevenjr. from day 1. the most rewarding part of it all is that he NOW has attempted to sing WITH me. twinkle, twinkle is a fav, and he can end almost every verse. STAR, ARE, HIGH, SKY, STAR, ARE. but i couldn't believe it the other day when after a week with JBOMB, stevenjr REQUESTED baby beluga. now that is funny. and since I can only remember 2 verses of lyrics, thats all we get. so i hear "babeee bauga, babbeee bauga" i need to record this.

so in my quest to allow stevenjr to enjoy a nice egg-free baked good on a saturday morning, I made SCONES. Garvey's Best of Britain SCONES. how strange that she works out of Washington State and they are sold at Williams-sonoma, is my geography that screwy? scone mix: $5, legendary spreadable fruit:$12.

wake-up call

2007-06-28T08:48:00.001-05:00

ok. last night it was around 93 degrees at the 7pm kickoff and i hadn't played soccer in 2 weeks. well, it's more accurate to say i haven't actually exercised either, but that was only to assumed as lately my only aerobic workout is soccer. and i was in massachusetts for a week preparing for my parents 70th birthday party. which involved alcohol, cake and ice cream for me too since yes, monday was my birthday. we will get to that later. so 93 degrees is hot. and we are playing a scrimmage to prepare for a july 14th over30 tournament we entered. and we started with 9. and i was the lone forward. and our center half decided that i wasn't really an option to pass to. not good. so it's official, im at the tail end of my over 30 glory and am going to need to seek out over40 options ASAP. not that I qualify, but boy would i be a ringer. the fresh new 30s gals are fast and apparently childless b/c they still enjoy playing soccer 5 days a week. i remember those days. alright, i just wanted to be clear that i am out of shape, and i know i keep posting that fact and at some point this whole stay@home mom playing soccer thing will be a mockery of soccer. something's gotta give.

our british embassy neighors have left the country, nothing to do with me of course. they returned for a new tour of germany for the next 3 years. it was a bummer to drive past their house on the ride home from ELO and have steven say TWRACEEE TWRACEEE. while i explained i knew he couldn't understand what "fled the country" meant. it's going to be a hard summer!

I had to take a bunch of boxes out of my parents house as it gets ready for the sale. my dad surrendered my mother's jewlery box for me and KK to pick through. my sister in law said that anything of value will be stolen so it can't go with them. so we did what any heartless daughters do. we laid out the merchandise and took turns. i tried to push a few items and she tried to guilt me out of the ruby ring. which she did. doesn't matter that it fit me. it was my grandma's ring and had some story around it. there was gold from ireland, which i announced would be helpful as gold doesn't lose value and in the next great war we might need it to heat the house. far after hillary is president though.

stevenjr and i went shopping yesterday at the teeter and midway through the store, stevenjr chucked his boston redsox bucket hat off but i didn't even notice until checkout. see how focused i am? then i asked the cashier if i could leave him to run to find it? he said sure, but then i wondered if the police would have a problem with that? is that the same as leaving your kid in the car while you run into 7-11? in the frozen food section i decided to turn back. after checkout i hit the customer service desk where the lady told me that no one turned it in. then assured me that someone would and i could check back the next day. so as i was considering it, this chatty customer guy says"did you say a BOSOX hat?" yes i did. "you better find that, someone will swipe it for sure." so of course now im all stressed out as this was a JBOMB hand-me-down and i can't lose it the first day it's out in NoVa. so i start scrambling down the aisles in my cart filled with GIANT SUPERMARKET re-usable bags. a manager stopped me and helped me find the hat. HURRAY!!

mixed messages:: we were playing POKENO with JBOMB and neighborhood friend Paul(both age 6) and Paul won the first game. He was excited and he was like YAY I WON and I clapped for him and we were all smiles. when JBOMB says "Paul, it's not nice to brag." i had to call foul. so i said JBOMB, he JUST won, he is totally fine to say YAY to celebrate his victory. but then i got all nervous. what are they teaching children in kindergarden? you can't be happy to win? does anyone know about this?

days til tournament: 17, days til LongBeachIsland 4 day vaca to celebrate USA's Birthday: 5. possible training days: 12.

damn you mr peanut

2007-05-18T09:55:00.001-05:00

ok. worst fears confirmed. little man steven jr two year old tested positive for a peanut AND EGG allergy. yes, those little chickens are producing pellets of mass destruction!!! im so angry. that doesn't begin to explain actually. now im going to have to be one of THOSE parents who are obsessed with ingredients and making labels for everything that say NO PEANUTS, NO EGGS. arrg!!!! now i gotta go pick up an EPI-PEN. waaaaaaaaaaaa. today i will be sad and angry about this. then i will get a hold of myself. tomorrow i run a 5K daisy dash with elia and i havent exercised since our championship indoor game last sunday! booyah. some mental mentor i am, maybe after the race i will offer her a cigarette? is that what all the 10 year olds are doing now? days til NC: 7, days til next soccer game: 3, bathing suits to be purchased:2.

TWO!!

2007-05-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

ok ok. here in two land, you wake up with hair, you go to nap with a mini hawk. like when mommy decides that at two you should have your first fauxhawk from the clippers!! since i gotta go to bed, here are a few picture of the birthday boy. and thanks to an easy blue's clues cake search on the ol' internet and i figured out a way to make a blue's cake. tomorrow, i leave it to the professionals at THE SWEET LIFE. the jury is out... what exactly happened while i watched some tv??

theme? what theme?

birthdate: 05.11.05, birthweight: 8.1., months of JOY:24, memory of forceps: slightly fading.

short attention span theater

2007-05-09T00:10:00.000-05:00

ok. some times you gotta wait to feel the inspiration of the dance. and only then, it may happen quickly, very quickly. but seriously, who can't dance to the beat of "we are the doodlebops, OH yeah". and pimp shades. they are a major fashion statement for the toddler set.
time doodlebops are on tv:9:30

thinking chair

2007-05-08T13:06:00.000-05:00

ok. so after dragging steven to 2 party stores and 1 tjmaxx, we got home with 5 shopping bags. theme, you ask? BLUE'S CLUES! (never mind that the children coming to the party range in age: 13,12,9,6,4,2) I bought $1 bucket & pails and intend on filling them with every goofy BLUE'S CLUES party trinket they could sell me. so of course after spending $20 on my mylar balloon order and only finding one measely section of an aisle with BC, i had to ask. "what is it? BC isn't cool anymore?" the sweet party store employee says, "i think its cool, but yeah its a small section." I guess when Dora and Diego came to town...the BC had to move over. so there i stood in front of the elmo section like, wow, this is HUGE. steven want to switchto ELMO! and the silence. BLUE'S CLUES! complete with sign. it is. and of course, he did his trademark screeching. until we went down an aisle and i started dancing to BarryWhite. then there was laughter! now i gotta get my cake man to return my call for a blue's clues custom cake!!!

tonight our organic CSA begins and we are so excited. the first pickup of our organic goodies has a nice wine and cheese party. and it doesn't matter that i have wine and cheese in my own home, the promise of free is all i need. hell, we already paid $600 for this years share! that's some expensive goat cheese! 1st party store bill: $29.97, 2nd party store bill: $65.33.

post shush picture

2007-05-07T12:54:00.000-05:00

ok. it was not such a crazy idea. 3 moms, 3 2-year-old boys, lunch at the silver diner after an hour at the park. and i was prepared. i had the dvd player charged and ready with a blue's clue dvd. but you know, i wanted to wait a bit before i turned it on...mistake #1. steven has this new thing where he will scream a high pitched screech. in some toddler effort to get my attention. kenny and james didn't scream. nope. they were happy to await their silverdollar pancakes. but the old bitty at the adjoining booth decided she had enough and came over to reprimand us. but i was busy chastising steven and explaining how we dont scream when i looked up, only to catch her going on about something..."that high pitched noise is annoying all the other customers..." as she looked around the diner looking for a standing ovation. what she got out of me was a blank stare with my mouth hanging open. i had nothing to say, i couldn't believe we were in a total KID-FRIENDLY stinkin diner with crayons inside a little 50s paper car and a menu with about 50 kids items. and WE were the ones in trouble. i haven't felt like i was 8 in a long time! we were all shocked too, and all we could do was giggle after she walked away. but the best was that a big money truck pulled up infront of our window and steven, kenny and james all stated chanting RED TRUCK, RED TRUCK, RED TRUCK, RED TRUCK, RED TRUCK, RED TRUCK, RED TRUCK!(while jumping on the bench). boys will be boys! days til someone turns two: 4, cakes ordered:0, presents bought:0, procrastination throttle: 100%.

did somebody say sweep???

2007-04-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

ok. this was more relevant for yesterday, but here i post a day behind the news. what else is new. for those of you who don't know this, our friend irene is living with us while she looks for a new place to buy since relocating to the US from a 3 year stint overseas in a blank_STAN that i never could pronounce. of all the wonderful things i love about irene, i ALWAYS forget she is a diehard yankees fan. COUGH. yes, marymary, i have the enemy close, very close. there are things i let slide... like her parking her SUV in front of our house with a FREAKING yankees license plate holder. wtf? although, one of these nights, i am SO going outside with a screwdriver and replacing it with a redsox holder. i wonder how long that would take for her to see... and it doesn't help that aRODhole has been ripping it up for the pinstripe pincushions. so i get to hear about these stats ad-nauseum. BUT this here weekend was such a wonderful-beautiful time of the year where the redsox beat the yankees 3 games in a row. yeeehaw. and since i am a much nicer person and kinder soul... i only bring it up a few times a day. b/c let's face it, with these bosox you never really now how long the gloating can last, but for now, i like to ask her how 4th place feels. it's also nice having steveO (being a orioles lover) stand firm as a yankee hater...which makes him more often than not pro-redsox. so i can actually let him start the trash talk and then i just get my hat for fun. but i still miss nomar. :(

a few months ago, i agreed to be a running buddy for my 9 year old friend Elia's 5k. girls o n the run, used to mean a different thing in my day! She is having a practice run today and since i haven't started running at all and only have 3.5 weeks to get ready, i said, sure i will go and see where i fall(in the pack, not on the ground!) so wish me luck. one small problem is that when i agreed, i was pregnant and i had a built in excuse for why i would be slow... now i got nothing for excuses and i can't be beat by a bunch of sniveling 9 year old's running buddies! sheesh! shots on goal in last night's over 30 game:4, goals:0, final score: 0-3(we lost).

shameless promotion

2007-04-23T14:55:00.000-05:00

ok. it is your basic duty to support stay@home mom businesses. i just wanted to get that out there. now, your more complex duty as a citizen of peekay nation is to buy MONSTERtops for every kid you know. i am sure there is a bylaw somewhere concerning this matter but you probably got lost in the turf field irrigation laws and quit reading the manual. cool, now that we are all on the same page, it is time to announce the OPENING of MonsterTOPS by EROTP!!! wooohooooo. which can be found at http://www.erotp.com. and forever more by the link in my left sidebar.

now this is where the fine print comes in. when you get to the checkout portion of your monstertop transaction. please feel free to type in PATTI for the 10% friends of peekay discount. yahoooooooo.

did you know monsterTOPS can help your toddler read before the age of 2? check it out. now that is smart. cost of T: $20, cost with peekay discount: $18, feeling that warms your heart: priceless.

tragedy

2007-04-18T11:47:00.000-05:00

ok. man, i have been glued to the tv watching the reports of the campus shooting. it is so awful, i just feel so sad for everyone involved. but i also feel sick seeing the almost joyous excitement that these loser daytime newscasters have reporting their up to the minute non-important speculations. they almost can't hide it. like a kid at christmas with all these feelings/reports. auntie kk and i watched from the first news break and then turned off the tv for a few hours, b/c watching the same 15 second shaky video of a rotund cop running with an automatic weapon wasn't worth it. but i have spent more time watching this than other tragedies that have happened during my stay@home-ness. which only makes me feel sad. in other news, we went to a playdate last monday where steven decided to pick up kenny's pacifier off the floor and pop it in his mouth. at the time, i thought it was funny, b/c steven never really liked the paci, but then his mom looked at me with this concerned face. "uh, he has a cold." and it was like i could see the CSI-style germs infecting steven's body when i looked over at kenny's mug and saw TWO streams of gross green gook coming out. OOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW. i was so disgusted. so like clockwork, stevenjr got sick on friday. ugh! steveO has declared that at all future playdates, as soon as i see a sicko, i grab stevenjr and run for the door. so that's the new plan. we didn't do too much during auntie's visit, but we did get out to the National ZOO. woo! it was fun, i love the zoo. especially since I became a FONZ member and now get free parking. and if you were ever feeling slightly down on yourself for your current weight loss program failures...I HIGHLY suggest an afternoon at the zoo, where you will see ALL shapes and sizes. thus returning you to a happy place, b/c really, you aren't THAT bad. days til first soccer game of the spring season:4. weeks since i last played: 2.

do over

2007-04-06T12:02:00.000-05:00

ok. what i didn't know when I posted tuesday was that i wasn't going to get any sleep that night, or the next 3 for that matter. I also didn't know that I would be eating goldfish when i started to cramp. what i haven't been telling you all for the last few weeks was that i was pregnant. now im here to tell you that im not pregnant. it's a weird thing to be pregnant. and this time i was cautious. really cautious. i was thinking statistically, i could be the one. since few of my friends have experienced miscarriages, and i was in that "high risk" demographic...i knew it could be a reality. i was excited to finally be pregnant after 4 months of trying, and i was anxious to spill it out in the blogworld, but then i thought, no. don't tell yet. but it didn't matter anyway, b/c im telling now. and i found that there is one way to be slightly relieved when you find out you the bad news. and that is probably ONLY when you think you actually have cervical cancer b/c the technician takes FOREVER with the transvaginal probe sonogram. i asked all the questions that an OCD googler would know: is my cervix open, can you see growth in my fallopian tubes? but when she went from "you can go after this"...to "please wait in the private consultation room for the doctor to tell you the results"...your mind starts to race. i was like, im totally happy with just going home now, no need for a chit-chat. b/c now, im on the chemo portion of my cervical cancer. see when the technician left the room to let me get dressed, i peaked at the sonogram images on the screen. i used all my "house, MD" tv watching training and my webMD degree to determine that the big black circles were actual tumors. so there you have it, i was diagnosed without the aid of a medical professional. so when i sat in the private room awaiting my horrific diagnosis, i actually felt pretty calm about the miscarriage. i mean, i knew what was happening but when my mind goes wild, it really goes wild. so then it was off for blood work and then back to my friend's to pick up stevenjr. and of course, in my immediate searching for the positive...i can actually get fit, lose weight, take prenatal vitamins and feel GOOD when we start trying again.(and drink on vacation) so that's my comfort, and a big batch of brownies. and flowers. flowers do work wonders. ah, it feels good to get that off my chest. it's not all shits and giggles here afterall. i promise, a light airy easter post this weekend! weeks til vacation: 7, weeks til 5k: 6, days til easter chocolate eat-athon, i mean healthy portion chocolate eating: 2.

the cart before the horse

2007-04-03T12:30:00.000-05:00

ok. i know they didn't do it just for me. but i thought it every time i went to harris teeter. these people need new carts! so imagine how excited i was to go there today and see all new shiny carts. new clips, new plastic bumpers... one note: the child seat is really shallow, which is weird. i mean stevenjr is not even 2 yet but for sure there is no way i am letting him roam free any time soon in the grocery store. he would dismantle every display and shelf in the joint. i look at those parents walking around the aisles with their little girls all pink and well-behaved, wow. THAT.WOULD.NEVER.HAPPEN.WITH.ME. it's spring break here in fairfax county. when you don't have a kid in school it doesn't mean a thing... except that my moth er's da y o ut program was cancelled for the week and i didn't think of it until AFTER i had prepared a milk, a juice, sliced grapes, made a nice cheese sandwich and filled the ice bags. arg. i was ready to start the day at 9am and nowhere to go! but apparently it is a reason for all these family vacations. i dont remember spring break being a big deal. until of course i got to college when {shannon} and i had to drive the 36 hours to go visit {erotp} in KEY WEST florida. this was way before they had a MTV real world there. that was my only true spring breaker trip and first time snorkeling . erotp had scabies, or what we thought was scabies until she found out she was getting a rash from the disgusting keg taps at the restaurant she worked at. and she chased spring breakers out into the parking lot after they stiffed on the tip after running her ragged. wow! you go girl. anyway, i dont have much to report today, unless you think 80 degrees on your thermometer is noteworthy. sorry massachusetts people. spring has sprung in DC! and tonight i have a scrimmage planned so i get to get out and play soccer tonight! yeehaw. deck. almost complete. railings still needed. btw- mia and nomar named their girls- ava and grace. not saying anything, but grace garciaparra is a little too double g,r,a,c for me. but hey, i had a lot of rules when it camed to naming jr and jr wasn't one of them. clipped coupons tendered at the teeter: 18.80, days til easter: 5, plastic eggs purchased: 18.

big shoes to fill

2007-03-28T22:16:00.000-05:00

ok. congrats to MIA and her special delivery of 2 baby girls. nomar was not there b/c he was flying in the air from florida. mary mary will probably say he was too scared to see her naked, but then again we might never know what mary mary would ever blog about again... can you even imagine the shite he will get for that one. eeeouch. anyway, assuming they will have the garciaparra last name still, that is a lot of letters for the back of their USA jerseys. i wonder if one will pick 9? now that is the kinda thing I will ponder for the next 16 some odd years. and will they bleed tarheel blue or georgia tech yellow? mia's years with USWNT: 18, world cup championships: 2, olympic gold medals: 2.

all hands on deck

2007-03-27T21:37:00.000-05:00

ok. it was a good weekend. the kind where the deck construction begins. YAY. the downside is that steveO is so busy being a man with tools that I am a single mom. which is a tall order when you have a toddler who thinks he can use a hammer too. so there was a lot of WHAASSAT, every time a nail gun or saw or hammer noise filled the air. then we have to investigate. i am so excited about it. we are going with TREX. which is exciting b/c I can pretend we are installing our own dinosaur. but let me talk about splinter free decking! wooohoooo. so excited. now i need to pick out the new deck furniture and of course, i already found a cool toddler sand/water table complete with an umbrella! and yet another reason why i can save my family a ton of money if I am not out shopping... i found an automatic bubble machine in a cool kid store in falls church today (doodlehopper). can you say, how lazy are you mommy? well, let me just say i don't have enough lung capacity to keep stevenjr happy with my bubble producing skills. we need a motor people! this is definitely something invented by a mom. sweet! can't wait til i find a FOURTH "C" battery so i can actually start the thing up. yeehaw.

soccer news: i played indoor sunday night in a game where we won 12-2. i scored 4 so I was feeling pretty non- old/fat/slow. but that's because, its amazing how much power i can get behind a ball when i am old/slow/fat. anyway...the US men played Ecuador on sunday in FLORIDA. tampa no less, which sucks b/c i have a sis-in-law there so if i had made any sort of plans, i could have figured out a way to go visit. anyway, a sweet win it was 3-1. landon, can't play in the big games, but here he was getting himself a sweet hat trick. he is neither old/fat/slow. go figure. bruce arena's microphone needs to be permanently unplugged. i can not STAND his voice. and now that he is willing to chat about his stupid yankees, im thinking of plotting a kill. get him off the air. screw him. eew. anyway, i was of course pleased that hottie taylor twellman got to play, however brief. i will take it, even though i thought the blue pinstripe jerseys were ugly. and yes, the USMNT is all about eye candy to me. did i mention that the US women are playing on mother's day weekend in PINK jerseys? now that my friends is genius. i think i might need to see if they are selling these pinkos. how cute. no hot pink like the babes. no, petal pink like for breast cancer.

so the deck construction continues this weekend and i decided to get the hizell out of dodge and head south to the inlaws. stevenjr can have some fun and i can shop for more spring/summer clothes considering today was 82 degrees and i can't fit into any clothes. there is something i am not telling you. non-refundable fee for swim club membership waiting list: 125, percent sure i think we will sign up: 25%.

naughty spot

2007-03-23T13:52:00.000-05:00

ok. i was really confused about fairfax county's recycling program. but the fact that they didn't list toddlers didn't stop me. he has a neck, right? that's all the website told me I needed to be concerned with. rotting bananas on countertop: 4.

define your default

2007-03-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

ok. my tv default is MTV. channel 180. it used to be 170 but then verizon decided to make some changes. every once in a while i still click to 170, but i meant the new 180. kinda like sometimes i drive to the grocery store on auto-pilot when i mean to go left to the post office. but this got me to thinking: what are people's defaults. irene is here visiting while job hunting and hers is CNN. can you believe it? CNN? I was shocked, but then i realized that is precisely why she knows what is going on in this world and i can only tell you what product placement the realworld has for the Denver season. so then i asked stevO and his is the DISCOVERY channel. ick. and that explains why he knows all about these weird world wars and how machines fly in the air attacking other countries. now stevenjr only has a 5 channel repertoire and since i do his channel surfing for him, his defined default order is

1. noggin
2. nickjr
3. Disney
4. nick
5. pbs

is it ok that pbs is last and usually for an extreme circumstance use only? I know my dad's is CSPAN, b/c EVERY time he has ever visited me, i had to watch it for hours while he rests with the remote on his shoulder. ok, so shameless comment requests: WHAT's your TV DEFAULT? deck building starts in days: 2, deck completion slated for in weeks: 2.

O.P.S- yeah you know me

2007-03-20T13:46:00.000-05:00

ok. i don't mind the smell of stevenjr's poop. in fact, i dont mind the smell of mine. maybe its b/c of my allergies, who knows. but im just saying, its not that bad. but when steveO changes steven's shite diaper, you would think that i was asking him to stick his head in the sewer near bondi's island. and i never really thought about it. until today, when i had to change dear caden's poopy diaper at my m other's d ay out program. today i was teacher. with 2 others. and somehow i lost the lottery and ended up changing caden's poop. but turns out, it wasn't just a simple change. he had THE worst smelling poop EVER. like EVER. never smelled anything so bad. and why could this cute little boy have such a monster shite? well, he has a "rec tal pr olapse"(im avoiding shite searches here) and since he has to have SOFT stools, he is fed things to aid a smooth delivery like mineral oil, grape juice and prunes. now imagine stuffing all of that in a cute little toddler and then being the UNSUSPECTING mommy teacher who has to change that shite. GRRRRROSS. I seriously didn't breathe for 2 minutes while i changed him. grroooooooss. wake up time: 8:30am, time to leave house: 9am, time to be at mom's da y out: 9:30. eek.

boob toob

2007-03-15T22:18:00.000-05:00

ok. i think it's the tv. it's coming between us! me and you dear laptop. it started when o&Lo's mom mentioned the showtime series WEEDS. and it ended with me netflixing the season 1 DVDs. it's great. i laugh. and I'm bummed the second season isn't out yet. WTF! but i'm not going to go on and on about the show b/c then people will be so OVER pk-hyped that they won't like it. and i HATE when that happens. this is one of those instances where i am right and if you don't agree with me, well then, you are a poopy pants. humorless too. also, im back into indoor soccer and preparing for the spring season outdoor. yeeehaw. we played our indoor championship game on sunday after having 3 weeks off. it was bad. we played these robotic 20 year old whippersnappers who ran around like toddlers on high fructose corn syrup.youth! i scored twice in our 15-5 loss. while i probably played no more than 3 minutes before screaming for subs. and no, second place is not where we should have been. 2 of our best were missing. ugh, i hate it when people let life get in the way of adult amateur recreational soccer. WTF? i mean, dont sign up and commit to something and then say "oooh, im 15 weeks pregnant. blahhhh". :) In actual professional soccer news,(yes there is some non-beckham news) The US women beat the pants off of denmark(?!!!?) 2-0(their pants were short) to Claim 2007 Algarve Cup Title. yeah i would love to talk about the game more and share my theories, but um NONE of the games were televised to the US. F this shite. im so sick of READING(yawn) about how the women do outside of the us home games. arg. remember how i said this was a world cup year for the women and i was going to post more? well its hard to regurg ussoccer.com stories to you if the games aren't on my tv. anywayyy, i played soccer at lunch with the moms. i was sucking wind after 3 minutes. there is this one intimidating mom, who im afraid to screw up in front of. she's my new augusta of old. she's every bit as intense but has a nice mom side to her so she doesn't spit in my face if I efF a pass to her. so that was fun. steven's language skills are going COOKOO. it's at the point where he does something at dinner and steveO and I look at eachother and say "did you teach him that?" and the answer is more often "No". he is a little sponge and i still have a truckdriver's potty mouth. at least his first word wasn't cornholio. but asking him to make the elephant or snake noise can make my day instantly. i will youtube a video soon. hours til i provide a family with a newborn dinner: 11.5, travel time: 15 minutes, days til st peekay day: 2.

gonna party like its 2-oh-oh-7

2007-03-11T14:55:00.000-05:00

ok. so last night steveO and i had a big night out on the town. we were actually invited to a party! a real adult party where you go up to a bar and order drinks. and there was a band! not a good band, but they had amps and speakers and music! so of course, we got to the restaurant early and had a small dinner and adult beverage. to prime the pump as they say. then we went back into the back room where the party was. i didn't even know that cafe asia had a backroom, but there it was! we were on time and so were about 30 others. so there was time to look around and see the place. now i do remember the evite said 238 YESes. but i didn't really imagine what over 200 adults in a room was like. it was a "worlds colliding" party, im not sure if that is a trademarked event but basically it was the 6th year that a group of friends get together and have a huge party at a bar and they invite all their friends. i mean ALL, like opening up your address book and unloading the hugest evite list ever. i still claim that shannon and i had a way better zodiac/party of the century events back at alma ave, but these people needed 6 hosts to get to the big #s. there was no gimmic, no announcements, no reasons to mingle. so that kinda sucked. i told 2 of the hosts to go up and introduce themselves and have a cheer-meter to see how many people were there for them, but too shy. anyway, there were no nametags. i love parties with nametags. hello my sign is CANCER. anyway, i just stood and watched. did i mention i was in party heels? yeah, so back to me STANDING in a room of over 200 adults. ow. yeah, some girl was like "yeah i wore tennis sneakers, no need to be in pain."(and they were white and i detest white sneakers for casual wear- tennis is a different story) but i gotta tell you she looked dumb. ha. so my pain was worth it. i met a guy who went to UMASS! and i only saw one guy i knew, but the room was so crowded and the music was so loud that i didn't leave my position to say hi. i wasn't mingling - i was people watching! and at one point i looked around and realized that everyone here was OLD. like my age and older, old. which is a strange thing to realize:: age. i mean in my 20s being in crowded bars where you cant move was fine and normal, and everyone was young. but being pushed from behind so that someone can get by you, just isnt fun when you are over 25 + anniversaries. then i felt *really* old, for realizing that i couldn't remember the last time we were invited to a party that didnt involve family or someone's birthday. and that's just sad, b/c now that we have babysitting options, i want out. and since i'm sharing. the caption for this stevenjr image is "is this another one of those books where the mommy gets shot by hunters?" this will be followed with my series on "why hunting is bad". part of my homePREschooling curriculum. drink specials: wine:$4, beer: $2. budlight: full price. hours til first indoor soccer game in 6 weeks: 5, hours it would be if it weren't for that pesky VP of daylight savings time: 6.

knowing when to say when

2007-03-10T12:20:00.000-05:00

ok. this will be a short post b/c look at what happens when you blog during toddler feeding time at the zoo. woops. have corn niblets::will sleep. hours til big night out: 6.

i feel your pain

2007-03-09T13:46:00.000-05:00

ok. usually im private about my fame and fortune with soccer, but i felt david needed to hear me.

hi david, i mean, beckham just seems strange to write in an intimate
letter, this is my first letter to you although, boy, the ones i have written... i so know what you are going through with your injury. man, it seems like just yesterday I screwed my knee up playing soccer in Belmont. belmont, england? naw, massachusetts. the highly touted, superior league for women EMWSL.yah, i thought you heard of it, the sponsors, the fans, man, it was the life. but then i decided to get a ball that was un-get-able, it was 1997 and back then i might do something like that. so i ran and i crossed and i went flying. and i pile-drove my left femur into my knee.
man, it hurt. but i remember what my agent said: show no pain. so i cried as i
was carried off the field. ooh the flickering of the lights from the cameras, it
was a mess. the doc thought i tore my ACL. ohh, tough it out, walk it out. 3
days later the call came, just a broken tibia. get on crutches immediately. pain management and then the rehab. ahhh, it did take a while and it was hard not to spiral into depression. but i know you will do what is right and get to america ASAP. we need you. leave spain behind and their butthead coach. show america that you are not a playboy has-been but you are the new MLS all-star. i will be here for you. but can you do something about that freaky wife of yours, b/c she is just odd.
yours truly in football, peekay
p.s. i am #23 too.
p.p.s I will see you at the NBC casting call!

not that kinda housecall

2007-03-07T09:51:00.000-05:00

ok. so yesterday was one of those days where im pretty convinced im losing my mind, and can hardly believe i received a high school diploma much less a BS from a university. but i had my first allergy appt in like 3 years. it was a sad occasion b/c i was also convinced that pregnancy had actually cured me of my daily allergies(not the cat one- just the dust/mold/tree one). I didn't have a refill of meds in years. but lately, life has been difficult to breathe and i gotta face it, im back in full allergy force. since i haven't been to this office in three years, after I made the appt i googled the address. i didn't really look at it, just quickly jotted it down and ran to the car and plugged it in my StreetPilot. did i mention i didnt look at it? so im driving and following what StreetPilot says. I get off at exit 52B from the outerloop, and it does cross my mind that i would have thought of taking an exit further down, but you know StreetPilot knows best. so i drive and i notice im heading toward fairfax, which still raises some eyebrows, but StreetPilot knows best. then im curving down some neighbor street and the houses are large and seperated by nice large lawns. and i notice that I'm NOT in an office complex. I'm at a house. yeah. I drove to the freaking DOCTOR's actual residence. can you believe i googled his name and instead of the office, it gave me his home address? yeah, F'ed. so i call the office. "hi, i googled the address and im in a neighborhood, im at oak forest dr." pause. receptionist: "who IS this?". me laughing: "haha, this is peekay I have an 11am appt and i googled the address for the office and it led me here." receptionist: "you are at his home, but luckily, HAHAH, he lives close to the office."
so she gives me the address, i plug it in and show up at the office, feeling like the biggest dork. and now i know where to go if my zyrtec/flonase/albuterol cocktail fix fails me. prescriptions to fill: 3, peak flow meter reading: 450, what it was 3 years ago: 510.

clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose

2007-03-06T14:28:00.000-05:00

ok. if you were my netflix friend(hint hint--and thank you to the 4 on my blog list who are), you would know that i not only put any oscar winner/soccer movie/will ferrell comedy on my list--but i actually have a cheesy high school movie fetish. some were surprisingly good and some were just UGH.(Extra credit if its a high school sports girl movie) but it doesn't hold me back from putting the cheese on my list. so when STICK IT came out on DVD(um did it actually ever appear in a theatre?) I of course put it on my list. my netflix method has been 2 for me 1 for steve and i make sure the one for steve is one i want to see. im such a benevolent netflix dictator. and i also make sure that the steve movies arrive on thursdays or fridays and i make sure we have no plans that would prevent us from watching said steve movie. aren't i the best organizer ever? if only the rest of my life was so planned. anyway, my point is Stick it, sucked it. but the actress: Missy Peregrym was on Heroes last night. and if it weren't for my netflix oddities, i wouldn't have known who she was! it was exciting. i love the NAME that side character guest star TV game. don't you play it too? and can we talk about her name for a minute? MISSY, ok, i can handle that. but PEREGRYM? wow. thats a mouthful, im actually more shocked that as a model she didnt change it to pere. missy pere. or missy grym. either one, seems more actressy. And since I got on the topic of dark confessions. there has been something that I have been holding back from some of you. I LOVE FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS on NBC. love. love. love. love. love. haven't felt this way about a show since facts of life. I LOVE it. did i mention that? its a high school tv show. but the athletes are boys. and they play american football. which i HATE. so dont tell me im 1-dimensional. here i am branching out into a self proclaimed arena of hate. and i love it. GO DILLON PANTHERS. I also need to talk about it b/c it is not on for the next 2 weeks and i am having some withdrawls. anyone out there feel my pain? anyone else see how freaking ridiculously HOT Taylor Kitsch is????well he is. and he normally has dirty long hair in his face and a very bad attitude. yeah he is my new johnny depp. while johnny gets stranger i needed a new version. so here he is. now go support the show so i dont lose my chance to see him weekly. thank you for your support. and according to my imdb info, i need to add 3 more cheesy movies to my netflix Q so that I can see Taylor in more movies.
The Covenant (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006),
John Tucker Must Die (2006). man, i got some watching to do. coupons tendered at giant this morning: 6, savings $: 5.

you go girls!

2007-02-27T22:57:00.000-05:00

ok. woohoo. very exciting news out of Chicago today. Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy will be inducted into The National Soccer Hall of Fame. I am so excited! woohoo. It will be the first time that an all-female class will be inducted in the Player Category. woohoo. not the last though folks! The ceremonies will be held on August 26 at the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, N.Y. and hello, i am so going! I wonder if they will have to call security. Jules as i call her on our daily mommy phone chats had a baby girl Isabel. I helped deliver her in a 3 hour intensive match. and as you know mia will be delivering twins soon. ot sure what role I will play in that hospital room. night nurse??? But my burning question is in regards to "Hamm was selected on 137 of the 141 ballots cast, setting a new high for votes received." so who were the 4 AHOLES who didnt vote for mia? international goals mia hamm scored: 158, international caps for julie foudy: 271

i was an oscar meyer winner...

2007-02-26T10:58:00.000-05:00

ok. so i actually watched the oscars. the whole dang show. we printed out our ballots and SteveO and I made our totally scientific uneducated guesses. Since I had seen 3 of the oscar movies on the list, I was ahead of the class. So making my totally random multiple choice questions, I felt a deja vu back to college, during some thermodynamics exam that I hadn't managed to study for. needless to say, i failed this one too. but since at the end of the night I got a 12 out of 24. I got an C! Steve got a 10 out of 24 and lost. He claims that he really won b/c he got ALL the actors correct. I won on cheesy things like the Documentary/Screenplay, costume design and cinematography catergories to bring in my major points. but hey, a win is a win and I won! One thing I did notice was that Marky Mark is H-O-T. i mean, i have always liked him, but last night he looked HOT. as i was telling EROTP this morning. he is hot. much hotter than that leo decapitated ever was. if meryl streep won for "devil wears prada" that would have been ridiculous. after watching the movie friday night, i can't even believe that she was nominated. i mean i liked the movie, but an oscar nomination? get real. and i couldn't help but stare intently at beyonce waiting to see the one moment when she shows how pissed she was at jennifer hudson. but i didnt see it. and jessica biels looked old and matronly. i wonder if her stylist is secretly working for cameron diaz(who looked great). and like every year, i wonder, where the hell was winona ryder? anyway, before the show started, i decided that if i was playing by the rules, i would have been at beaner's oscar party in DC, but the snowy ice kept me home. and since i would have been at a party stuffing my face with party food, it felt right to make some brownies. so i decided to make these NO PUDGE fat free brownies. eew. in my new tupperware pan in the microwave. are you seeing all the words here? microwaved fat free brownies? EEW. and that they were. i ended up cutting them into pieces and just chewing the chunks until they molded into a hard ball and spit them out. like a cow and its cud. totally gross, but i felt the need to confess. inches of snow that fell on my yard: 6, minutes spent shoveling: 0.

international symbol for dip

2007-02-24T10:05:00.000-05:00

ok. I wasn't kidding when I said that stevenjr took dip very seriously. so here he is giving the sign. if it is not acknowledged immediately, things get messy. and notice his total serious no-nonsense face. his favorite dips are ketchup, hidden valley ranch dressing and veggie dip. kalamata olive hummus is a new one. he will dip french fries, bread, red pepper, grape tomatoes, green pepper and usually, he just sticks his finger in the dip and licks it. yeah, we like our dip in this family! tonight is a very exciting night. we are having a real live babysitter. one you pay to come and watch your kids! she is from Poland!tonight we get a date night at the Vienna Inn! doesn't it sound so exotic and romantic? well it isn't exactly europe, it's VA, and its a total dive. but who cares, I like pretending we are really going to Austria. we are meeting steveOs high school pals for dinner/drinks. yay! a real liveadult night of convo. and if you are keeping track at home, atomic war is here. :( hours to prepare the house for the first stranger babysitting event: 7.5, hours she costs per hour: $10.

hummus among us!

2007-02-23T13:39:00.000-05:00

ok. a while back kari mentioned hummus was a snack her girls liked. I was obsessing about getting steven jr his protein b/c he has been on this vegan kick. so after trying a few times and having no success, today was the day. apparently, he only likes kalamata olive flavor, which is cool, since i bought it for my lunch and was more than happy to let him share with me. so he had some nice little whole wheat pitas, red pepper strips and away he dipped! remind me to post a picture of him giving me the international sign for dip. its too hilarious and would be unjustly explained. it needs a picture. with the most serious of faces.

so today we went to music class, i havent been in like 3 months. but i decided to get out and bring steven jr to some nice runaround time. but i forgot that i HATE going. all the moms are so cliquey. I stood alone, sat alone and basically just followed stevenjr around and acted like i didnt care. then during snack time the Fing lady handing out the cookies seemed to miss me and my son who was SCREAMING "CAAKEY". so i had to leave my totally unfriendly sheet of moms sitting with their well behaved children and chase the cookie lady. "CAAKEY" then i just sat on the floor, not on the sheet per the rules, b/c i was sick of this place. i was such a rebel, i might as well have had a lip ring and neck ink. then it was toy time so i let steven run wild and just stood there and watched alone. still pissed, but acting so unconcerned with anyone else. and THEN the welcoming committee lady, must have noticed the loner. so she came over all bright and cheery. but i was still angry and i had to dig down deep to be smiley and bubbly and act like i was totally friendly. when i wasn't feeling it. i hate mom small talk. so finally she had to go stop a tugofwar over a thomas the choochoo. thankfully, stevenjr wasnt involved. he was just waiting for the choochoo to fall so he could grab it. we left. remind me i dont want to go there anymore. admission to music time: $3, $ spent at trader joe's to make me happy again: $87.45, bottles of charles shaw purchased: 5.

nosejobs for everyone!

2007-02-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

ok. it has been declared national blogger facelift month! so I decided to let a nice big breath of fresh air fall down on the world. so here you are. my new BFF Denise from Delite Designs did all the cool new work saving me from blogocrity. Isn't she fab? so all of you with your boring blogger sites, go check her out. you know who you are! today is day 1 of my mother's day out program and here i sit blogging, which is a totall NO-NO. I'm supposed to be doing things on ly list! eek. ok I better get at it!!! enjoy your new eye hard candy!! years with old original blogger template from 2003: 4. day my dad was born: 2-20-1937. HAPPY 70th!!

the ice storm

2007-02-14T14:27:00.000-05:00

ok. and this is not the kind where you can leave your keys in a bowl when you come in the door. this is the kind of day where the wind is kicking it in HIGH gear and the trees around our house are tossing their HUGE chunks of ice at our house and yard. swirling around like a woman scorned. and as i sit here, sick since sunday, enjoying every single second of stenjr's nap, i hear him making noise way tooo soon b/c some GD hunk of ice just attacked his window. so annoying. and i am a horrible sick person. i like to groan and complain and be in the middle of the house for all to hear. im not the kind of sick person that you can send to their room to sleep. nope, i gotta sleep on the couch in front of the tv and get attention and service. so since i am home alone, i have at least you to complain to. i hate being told to drink water. hate it. and im being told by everyone i know. but i am drinking it now, so enough already. I included 2 pics of stevenjr. the left shows his cool new shirt i got him for his cool vday cards he was supposed to mail out to his fly posse, but he is a damn procrastinator! sheesh, and the right is a pic of him displaying his new face. his new magnum - if you will, mary mary- today i think it is in honor of anyone out there having a bad v day or bad day in general. this face come in the inside/outside flavor. seen below right.
**INSTANT WEATHER REPORT---THE SUN IS OUT AND POSSIBLY WARMING THE ICE CHUNKS, SO NOW ALL CAN FALL FROM SKY.---**
I do find it annoying that when i am sick and exhausted, i find myself feeling most inspired and motivated. like i am looking at my kitchen, thinking of all the things i could do to clean it up and get ready for a very non-special non-valentines day dinner, but alas, im sick. so there is no energy to do such a thing. just the idea. which i dont usually have anyway. and im making myself my own lifecoach. yeah, me. b/c i have been watching a lot of daytime tv and did you know that people actually hire people to help run their lives? and guess what, the clients are already successful people. doesn't make sense to me what-so-ever so i decided to hire myself. so i signed up for a mother's day out program. which is basically like this co-op thingy where moms dump their kids for 3 hours at this place and we all rotate the care. so every tuesday i will be free for a few hours to get my LIST done. ah the list, that needs to be started actually and not just tossing around in my head. oh, and in case you were wondering, my BO smells like onion. yep. peekay, showered but without deodorant, has onion armpits after day 1. thats what a fever and chills/sweats will do for you! i dunno, do people wear deodorant when they are sick? movies watched in 2 days:2, movies watched last month:0,temp monday night: 101.8

weak week

2007-02-08T22:35:00.000-05:00

ok. so i took a week off to relax, naw there is no relaxing. yesterday was steveOs bday and what better thing to do than, go to the salon and get my hair done, then get a mani-pedi. yep. all under the, it's YOUR birthday and I'll primp if i want to. so when he got home i was all ready and very NON- stay@home wifey looking. let's face it, i sometimes JUST change out of my PJs when it gets close to steveOs arrival time. under the totally random yet totally connected file: this morning, stevenjr slept til 9:50am, yeah, thats what a nice of martini and wine capital grille night get me, a morning to sleep in! i was psyched. so when i heard his battle cry, i went in promptly and started our morning chat...when i had little man tate on the changing table, i decided since it was 10am, that i would just go ahead and change him into play clothes, and skip the post breakfast get changed richual. so, as im holding one arm on his naked legs and reaching into the closet to find him shirt and pants, he has decided to bite his own arm. totally normal, but then he realized that he can blow on his arm, and YES, it makes noise just like blowing air on mommy's tummy does. so he starts blowing arm farts and laughing really hard. including looking at me with like the biggest morning grin ever. and i laugh b/c A. its funny and B. he's a boy, come on thats funny. so we go downstairs and i call steve. "you are not going to believe it, something that is left to the minds of the junior high boys locker room thinktank... stevenjr figured out he could blow arm farts today." of course steveO is the proud father and laughs wholeheartedly. SO THIS IS WHERE IT GETS StranGE: I read today's rustedrobot post: http://www.rustedrobot.com/2007/02/and-water-is-piping-hot and im totally feerreaked out. could the robot be channeling his shower memories into wee stevenjr? and yes, J and S have a long future of twin boy arm faahts. i can't wait to hear the stories.

so i was able to watch the US men beat meh-he-co last night 2-0. mostly live in HD(THANK YOU lord) and some on tivo which was painful since hi-def is so choice. anyway, not that any of you care but here goes nothing. june-ish, i really really lost faith in landon. like world cup 2006, he was dead to me. but last night, he did something i was excited about. played, scored and didnt look like a total wimp. so i was happy. and of course i love seeing tim howard back in goal. love him. now, they gotta get taylor twellman back in front playing. i like him and since he is the only hottie out there, come on now, give me some eye candy! i miss my mcbride! clint dempsey looks so much like a strung out robert downey jr, its scary. clint left, see robert downey jailbird right. and bruce arena and his GD lisp, have got to go. ugh, he is gross. "and that itthhh totally clatthhhlethh." $ spent at 4th tupperware party last night: $77.34, cupcakes consumed: 1, headache from sugar rush: 10.

#9 is having 2

2007-01-31T00:13:00.000-05:00

ok. mia is expecting having twins. did i mention this yet? did i mention my previous redsox-stalker love for nomar? well its been a while b/c its been a while. anyway, not only did my 2 athletic favs get married. now they are spawning. and now there will be 2 SUPER DNA experiments at work! apparently, Nomar was quoted saying, "...Whatever they play will be entirely up to them.". and i am like WHAT?! you are living in LA Beckham land. YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE SOCCER STARS. hello, they can enroll at Beckham's soccer academy when they are 8. It really bothered me that he was already on the "children with choices" bandwagon. they are your children. mold them. force them to do anything you want. that is your right as a parent. unless of course, you think like Today's meredith viera and moms are just babysitters screwing the kid's father without pay. probability that the twins will prefer ballet to balls: 2%.

DNA testing?

2007-01-30T15:08:00.000-05:00

ok. I can't really get over how much stevenjr looks like a little british hooligan. And I SWEAR his attitude has changed. Everytime I see him, I do a double-take. wha? who? yep, its really weird to let your kids hair grow and grow and then shear it off like a lamb. do you hear the lambs, clarice?but I couldn't resist showing becks with my boy. do you see the resemblance? do you see the soccer stud likeness? yeah, i do too. i mean, i just want to welcome the chap to America, is that so wrong? **HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA!!!** And speaking of soccer, BRAVO to the US Women's National Team for bringing home the FOUR NATIONS TROPHY! saaaahweet. and for Kai and Chalups for scoring. wooohooo. I know it was scary for all of you but yahooo, we rule. GO USA. hours since last caffeine consumption: 27, probability this will last:10%, thoughts of coke/coffee dancing in my head: 100.

hair football club for men

2007-01-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

ok. so yes, i was up til 1:30 last night cleaning the house and baking for my first hosting of the playgroup. And it all paid off as the house was sparkling this morning, although i was exhausted. but only 2 of the 8 moms showed up and there was way too many brownies/muffins for me so everyone got a nice goodie bag. in normal steven style he welcomed the other 2 boys in with a kiss(MUUUUAH) and later james got a raspberry on his belly. at what age is that inappropriate? this is the same kid that bashed steven in the head but what are you gonna do. just in case it really sucked though, i called in the brit squad from down the street and they came and stayed for the debriefing and lunch. it was pretty much decided that stevenjr was in desperate need of a haircut. so after a nice long post playgroup nap, stevenjr and i took a short stroller ride down the street in the very cold air to see the brit barber tracey. so i present you the before/after/during pics. sorry about the cropping job, just dont feel up to it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY EROTP!!!

minimarshmallows presented as a post haircut treat:4, setting on clippers:6.

beavis and butthead

2007-01-28T14:26:00.000-05:00

ok. we went to a dinner party last night with SteveO's high shool pals. well at least *I* called it that, but when you put together 3 couples and 7 kids...it doesn't exactly translate into the traditional dinner party format(apparently, that is when the kids are babysat). so it was determined that toddlers don't eat when they are at parties. so i was thinking, wow, if only i was so excited to be out at a party that *I* could lose weight by not eating. seee...so im ready to book some parties. one of the kids at the party, NOAH, was 7. and I wasn't exactly sure what seven meant until he came running in the family room with a barbie over his head yelling. NAKED BARBIE. i seriously had to look away and bury my face in my shirt b/c i was laughing so hard. and parents don't generally like you to laugh( seems like encouragement) at their boy's beavisNbutthead behavior. when i came up for air- i looked at the mom, and said, "so this is what's to come.", I know she was mortified, but that was funny.i need to post this dance party brought to you by the ELO offspring toddlers b/c it is that funny. and perhaps the name of their new dancing troupe! And the US WOMEN kissed their brother and tied ENGLAND 1-1 in China. eew, i REALLY need a WIN ladies, this tying stuff is for the birds. but all is not lost as heatherO put one in the net, so good for her! tupperware orders delivered:2, days til next party: 10

it's friday, im STILL in love

2007-01-26T11:05:00.000-05:00

ok. SHE BLOGS. yes folks, wee little skeletor posh spice texted me last night to let me know she is missing from my super cool link list. uh, sawry, i totally didn't mean to slight you. so with a flick of my wrist, she appears! now, im this much closer to becoming in the inner becks circle! and will everyone stop speculating about HIS official awesomeness? it is so.

in soccer playa news the US women kissed their sisters this morning in china at the four nations tournament. TYING GERMANY 0-0 is NOT acceptable. arg. i was really counting on HO'Reilly to step up and since this game was not televised, i wont know what freaking went on. i vent. doctors appt scheduled for stevenjr: 2:45, tupperware boxes arriving today: 4, days to buy new indoor shoes before next game: 3.

free but there is always a catch

2007-01-25T14:36:00.000-05:00

ok. so i heard some moms at playgroup talking about freecycle.org. this supposedly cool site to get free things you might need and keep it out of the landfills, one woman's junk is another's crown jewel. or something like that. so i signed up not knowing many details, like the OVERWHELMING AMOUNT of mail coming to my inbox. doubled actually b/c there is a post for the item labelled: OFFER and then there is the soon to be posted TAKEN email. you have choices, but if you do the digest form, and get it once a day, then what chance do you really have to get those mini-blinds or 3 lb bag of almonds? probably slim. so i was in day 2 of it, when i saw a most unexpected item posted. 1 of 8 items actually and the others seemed pretty benign but there was the 1 that caught my eye. prompting me to ask steveO on a nice warm sunny saturday - 2 weeks ago: "do you know what astroglide is?". his reponse: "i dunno, some sort of ab-workout?". so like any good investigative reporter, i google. but OH NO. astro glide is a personal sexual lubricant. oops, where was i during sex class? and this fine upstanding gal was doing her part to keep our landfills free and clear of a 2.5 ounce bottle of an UNUSED and SEALED container. um, hello. it was snatched from the list within 45 minutes. and yet even more remarkable, the fact that astroglide is offered on their website in FREE SAMPLES. so what service is she exactly offering? and while i am pontificating...does this mean that she is done with sex and no longer needs this product? did she find it in her Christmas stocking and decided regifting was just not an option but coming face-to-face with a stranger was more appealing than the trashbarrel? did she win it at sex toy party but forgot to tell everyone she was celibate? did the great god of lubricant now deem her ready to naturally produce her own glide?ok you get the point... remind me to unsubscribe? but with fodder like this - maybe i will wait. and let me know if you want to know the other 7 items to try to make sense of this. amazon sale price for 2.5 oz: $6.99, customer reviews: 21.

reunited, and it feels so good

2007-01-24T14:23:00.000-05:00

ok. so the ELO crew and their offspring of 4 were here for a week of mom-bonding and group child-rearing, well that's what we told the men of the clan but it was also about laughing/alcohol/tv programming/blogs/brainstorming. topics included: naughty spots, discipline (who has time when tv is on?), tampons, showers and why they are good but not always necessary, baskin robbins ice cream cakes do not live up to their hype, the patriots -paytreerots (subtitled: has pk ever seen a play where the magic was unleashed? answer- NO.) [editors note: pk sees neanderthal men bashing into eachother, no athleticism witnessed, sorry no conversion to the evil AMfootball set.] we generally refer to this as our commune living in FC. so we had a ~5 month martin, ~9 month andrew, 20 month steven, 2 year duncan( and leading the charge was bridget rocking in the 2.5 year set. so as you can imagine, age before boys, bridget ruled the roost. there are pictures to prove it, and even though marymary was all freaked out, kids will be kids. and what better way for kids to be kids. a new playroom! sanity, in tact! i believe the germs that were passed originated from steven's contact with a mangy girl from the week before, but i was told that is a HAARIBLE word to use for a child. my bad. but it still is a very accurate description. and we all fell to the great germ world. i also learned that it is rude to bolt the door as a guest leaves your home. HELLO? when else am i supposed to bolt it? 2 hours later when i realize i didnt secure the door, not likely to happen? come on now, if you hear the click of the lock as you leave a friend's home(where you were welcomed and told to return if desired) you SHOULD NOT BE OFFENDED. now, that i thought was just a given. bolt lockers unite! I am also taking under advisement, the suggestion to rename this blogger, as in the next few weeks, i will be UNDER CONSTRUCTION and getting a full facelift, to better allow my FAITHFUL following of ~5 to visually enjoy something better than 1998 html. trips to grocery store: 6, nights of prepared meals: 1, nights of soozan's gourmet dinner: 1, nights of pizza:2, nights of football party food:3, nights all 5 kids slept through the night: 0.

it's friday, i'm in love

2007-01-12T22:41:00.000-05:00

ok. i don't need to mention the most exciting thing to happen in the MLS, b/c this kinda thing was ACTUALLY covered by CNN and major networks. wow. stand up and take notice, bitches. he's all mine. and i don't want to hear about how big of a fan you are. did you read his autobiography? do you own it in hardcover, prominently displayed on your special "soccer" book shelf? no didnt think so. spice girls albums owned: 2, soccer jersey # i share with my beckham: 23.

2007-01-11T23:16:00.000-05:00

Happy 20 months!

ok. no better way to celebrate than a list! 20 ways i love my toddler:

1. i love the way you say si instead of yes, and that *I* didn't teach you that, rather you picked it up from hours of Dora and Diego on tv. (Does that count as good parenting or bad?)

2. I love that you say UH-OH whenever you do something on purpose, and act like it was an accident.

3. I love that you gobble up blueberries and bananas.

4. i love that you not only kick any ball i give you, but you actually dribble it.

5. I love that you smile all the time.

6. I love that you have a strong appreciation for the absurd.

7. I love that you sleep through the night.

8. I love that you say MMMM... when you eat something yummy.

9. I love that you jump and practice that skill continuously.

10. I love that you were born with a Beckham faux hawk.

11. I love that you shout "B"! whenever I turn on wheel of fortune.

12. I love that you clap at the end of any song.

13. there is no thirteen

14. I love that you are always up for a game of "i'm gonna catch you".

15. I love that you get your own bib out of the drawer when i ask you.

16. I love that you try to kiss any kid you are playing with.

17. I love how you say "Whassss thhhhhhhaaaaat"

18. I love that you take after your father and push the broom around whenever you see it.

19. I love that you say BYE, BYE and wave when you get on your little car.

20. I love to cover you in kisses!

2007-01-10T23:11:00.000-05:00

tupperware, the real suburban crack

ok. ya know, its really messed up. i went to a tupperware party 7 years @ beaner's rooftop party in Logan Circle and I bought a bunch of crap. random stuff i never used. turns out the salesgirl was giving her 2nd party ever so there you have it. In November, 7 years later, beaner hits me up for party # 2, and since I still actually own the crap I have from 7 years ago,and boxed it with me during my last 3 moves , i figured, what the heck. i need a night out. so i go and walk away with $197 missing from my wallet. yeah, the tupperlady is THAT good. and in the middle of my polymer high, i sign up to have a party. so does her friend Kris, and we both promise to go to eachothers parties. are you starting to see a pattern? then we plan them the night after eachother! sheesh!

hi, it's wednesday, my name is peekay and im a tupperaddict. this is my second meeting in 2 days.

do you get the picture? so somehow in my cabernet-indused-plastic-fumed-storage-wonderland last night, during my party I let this tupperCULT artist, talk me into *thinking* I too can become a tupperware lady. commence the laughter. i basically forced my friend claudine into hosting a party after morgan bailed b/c of her demanding attorney at law schedule. so now, i have invited guests over, plied them with lots of food/wine/home-made magnolia cupcakes,
and essentially sold my soul to some devil who can go from freezer to microwave oven. i know its EFFED up. but with my $1100 in tupper sales at my party and the 2 party bookings, i was able to order $882 of tupperware for $78 cash. im hooked. i love the tupper. i have issues. am i *REALLY* actually thinking of going into sales? I know why this lady (pictured right) is so happy to have all this kitchen plastiques, do you? days til next tupperware party:28, days to decide if it will be my 1st sales party: 12.

2007-01-08T00:47:00.000-05:00

easy like sunday morning

ok. it's been a while since I got some new music and since I am still iPod-less(yes santa, i am an angry elf) I asked for some new CDs on my amazon list. I got them all and I have been excitedly playing them. It's a little bit embarrassing really that 3 of them had songs that were played on grey's anatomy, but I can't help it, i still like the spice girls for pete's sake. And since I have been on a rejuvenated music high, i also put some new CDs on Stevenjr's list. He of course got all 6 of them, some wiggles, laurie berkner and last but definitely not least was the soundtrack to Jack's Big Music show. You can't imagine what has happened. It started 5 nights ago when I took him upstairs and popped the JBMS (season 1)CD into his $20 total cheapo Sears CD player. He was hooked, I mean it wasn't a total surprise b/c he loves the show, but there was something different now. he looked around for the screen, convinced that he would see the image of Jack bouncing around, but he finally got it that it was just sound. so he started dancing, and at the end of EVERY song, DROPPed whatever he was holding and clapped. and he looks at me like "hey, clap for the man." so i clap too. and we repeated this cycle for a couple of nights. but for the last couple of days after playing in the tv room for a while, he would go up the stairs and squat in front of that little CD player and start hitting buttons. Then he noticed the "now playing" CD case sitting on his bookshelf and made monkey noises until i handed it to him. He opened it up and pulled the liner notes out. He ooohed and aaahed over all the pics and asked who everyone was. I get it, he likes music. And today, being sunday, it was early and i needed coffee, so I took the boombox and CD case downstairs with me as I lured him to the kitchen, then dragged his little chair and made some coffee. The image made me laugh so hard, I had to post it. I mean, come on now, how many toddler music geeks are out there, sitting on their chair sunday morning, reading the liner notes while the CD plays and plays. Yes, he definitely thinks the WHOLE album passes the ivaner repeat test. b/c it played over and over and at the end of track 15, he would stand up from his chair and yell UH-OH UH-OH until we came to help him. then, when we grew weary of the jack and his damn music crap show b/c we heard it 500 times, he learned where the play button was. start time of indoor game: 11pm, score at halftime: 12-0, goals i scored: 4, end result: 19-0.

2007-01-06T18:35:00.000-05:00

bookfight club
ok. so I know I have been in suburbia for a long time, when i find myself signing up for a bookclub. get this, with strangers. yeah i joined this F all s Ch urch moms club and they happen to have a form you fill out with all these possible activities on it. so i Xed the box with a bookclub, more for the goodies/wine than the reading. i mean, i don't know if its age or childbirth, but I can't remember anything. so how im supposed to read a book and then discuss it with women i don't know. when did i think this was a good idea? the funny part, is that the first meeting is next tuesday the 16th and we have to come with a few suggestions. hmmm, i wonder how beckham's autobiography will go over? and since i have no idea what these other moms are like, i will probably bring some benign best seller to the table that i can purchase the cliff notes for. do they still sell the cliff notes for books or just classics? so what i am saying here, is that i need two good suggestions neither to insult/scare these unsuspecting women. please people, help a peekay out.

and while we are on the topic of doing things for 2007. a bookclub was not on my list. nothing was actually, except maybe breed another angel. but im not making any promises here. how much time should a parent actually devote to turning their 19 month old into an ALL-AMERICAN? maybe a pregnancy would get in the way of those precious off-season training sessions?

i will work on blogging more about soccer this year too b/c it's a women's world cup year, and i just know all the businesses and governments out there are going to be shutting down for this grand affair. or is all that just happening in my second life? days til 1st indoor game: 1, teams I belong to:3, clubs I belong to:2.

2007-01-05T20:18:00.000-05:00

Nothing says new year's eve like Projectile Vomiting
ok. so after taking down the family with bronchitis on christmas morning, yet still dancing and jumping as if absolutely NOTHING was wrong with him, I took Typhoid Steven, as Grammy has so aptly renamed him, to the doctor. not my normal ped, but this small man, with very small delicate fingers. i immediately thought to myself, if i ever must be required to have a male ob-gyno doctor, he would be it. anyway, he hesitates with the antibiotics, but pushes forward with a nebulizer. nebu-what? oh you are the lucky one then, b/c you have never had a bad enough bout of bronchitis to bring on asthma and other respiratory issues. ah hem. sooo, he tells me what to do and leaves me in the office with a humming motor and a very angry/sick/tired/wiggly toddler. steven jr immediately loses the trust game with me and fights for his life to get away from the mask i have to put over his nose/mouth which is hooked to this burring motor. oh and then there is the mist pouring out of the mask. yeah. like a fart in church. so after wrestling with me, he collapses in my arms and gives in. when the nurse comes back in TEN minutes later, he is asleep in my arms and i have my finger in between his teeth keeping his mouth open. "FUN! where can i get one for home use?", you ask. well my dear blogging fools, the doctor makes me RENT one and take it home. yes, the joys of parenting. so we return 3 days later and the wee little doc still doesn't like his breathing and now increases the nebulizer treatment to 4 times a day, adds antibiotics AND a liquid drinkable pink potion for the bronchitis. no side affects mentioned. so we go home, start the treatments and i pack for a drive up to EL. so, the friday before new years weekend and we are 2 minutes down the road, the car is packed to the gills and steven jr pukes. hmmm. not good.turn around. clean boy, clean car, clean toys with puke, call pediatricians office. the nurse thinks he is fine and just had an upset belly. so i hem and haw. i call steveO for backup but he is not commiting to an answer. this will later be refuted. so we pile back in the car and now since its 10am not 8am, the ride will be long. and in CT on Merritt Pkway, it gets longer. as in the kind of long where your 19month old pulls an exorcist move and PROjectile Vomits yogurt/milk/cheese/blueberries/goldfish all over himself and the car. interestingly, the peach yogurt color reigned supreme in that concoction if you are playing at home. yeah, i know what you are saying, what was up with all the dairy? yeah, my bad. and believe me, i paid for that in scrubbing out a carseat. so long story shorter b/c im bored telling it. he managed to puke 5 more times and kicked off the new year's eve party at my brother's house like any 19 YEAR old would be proud. needlesstosay, he was in bed by 9pm and i rang in the new year asleep by 10:30. parenting? yes. something new for the new year? garmin streetpilot c330. hours to EL: 8.5, hours from EL: 6.5

2006-12-25T13:04:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!!!
OUTSIDE: 12 bushes glowing, 11 netted lights, 6 snowflakes, 5 santas, 4 snowmen, 2 animated deer.
INSIDE: 1 toddler version of kris kringle.

2006-12-11T12:17:00.000-05:00

lifestyles of the filthy rich(no pun intended)
ok. so we returned from our most fabulous awesome 5 day vacation in Colorado @ Beaver Creek. the beav. it was INCREDIBLE. My cousin's wedding was amazing. The level of detail she went to was - insane. Gift bags everyday. breakfast at the Ritz EVERYDAY. a blacktie dessert reception, a rehearsal dinner at a Vail restaurant - Pepi's($$$), wedding on top of Bachelor Gulch in Zach's Cabin. Sleigh ride up the mountain and a paid day of skiing. hello. it was soo nice. we lived it up large. i kicked off the credit card sewage with a $16 glass of wine. GEEZ! I dont even pay $16 for a bottle. yum, it was good. overpriced? yes! fun? NO DOUBT. it was great, and being the total forgetful parents we are- we even FORGOT to call to check in one day. woops! more wine for mommy!! anyway, steve brought his camera up the mountain one day so you will be treated with a few pics of me, in my james bond's posse style. And I am breaking my anonymity to post ski pics, b/c you can hardly see me anyway. We did 2 days of skiing instead of the planned 3, because...we are getting old, people! i was very sore from all that skiing and once again i didnt train hard enough to ski for 3 days. can you even imagine - training for skiing? well, yes, thats what you do when you want to have fun and ski hard over 30. so i barely trained, ate and drank a ton and skiied calmly. it has been about 4 years since my last trip to Colorado when we sampled Brekenridge/Vail/A-Basin with Shannon and some guy who shall remain nameless. So now i am rejuvenated and am looking forward to any ski vacation that comes my way. the condo we stayed in (ski-n/ski-out) was being sold for $4.5 million, think we can get about 450 of our closest friends and buy it? who's in people!?!!! I mean when i break it down to $10k each, doesn't it seem like a total deal? I think I can find 9 people and if 45 of us each find 9 takers. we can totally do this!!!! see, a little simple math and hey, you can be a million dollar home owner. and guess what? hot chocolate with bailey's irish cream is an amazing way to enjoy a hot tub after a hard day on the slopes. did i mention the marshmallows you can toast at the ritz's fire pit? did i mention, walking out the main door of the condo and SKIING DOWN to the chair lift? see, you want to do it. we can achieve anything with 450 people!!! hitches with the flights: 0, terrain open while we skiied: 42 %, terrain open 3 days after we left: 85%.

2006-12-05T02:04:00.000-05:00

when in doubt, order pizza
ok. i pretty much decided that shall be my epitaph. i have been having this conversation with mary mary where we compare our housewifey duties and we both think we suck at the whole getting dinner on the table thing. it's a task. it's our JOB. but the way i feel, is that if I don't have a rachael ray recipe picked out and the ingredients on a shopping list by 10am, then the whole day is shot. then i stress about the impending dinner hour. then it arrives and im like ARG! let's order pizza. usually, it's how would you like pizza? tonight, it was, I'm ordering pizza. and by ordering, i mean, logging into papajohns.com and picking the same garden veggie thin crust pizza that we have been getting since I started weight watchers. i mean, since i starting paying a company to now make me feel guilty when i go for that ice cream, it's not enough that *I* know i ate the ice cream, now there is a corporation involved. my sponsor. i wish it was adidas, but no, it's weight watchers. no, no, no this is not supposed to be a fat post. it's a post about not getting things done and let's see, im flying to colorado for 5 days in less than 28 hours and im blogging. im not finishing sorting of the pile of clothes i have laid out. nope, im blogging. so, the college soccer season is over and i can return to normal functioning. i have been TiVOing the shite out of the women's season and last week I was a big fan of Kerri Hanks from notre dame, the first sophmore to win the "heismann" of womens college soccer. but then she won it, and i felt like it was a ripoff. heather O should have won. im sorry, its not ALL about the goals, what about the conference? anyway, maybe the national team will have a look at Hanks and see if she really is the next lady Beckham. I don't care really, I just want the world cup trophy on AMerican soil. i had to run to REI tonight to buy some patagonia long underwear, b/c i checked the weather in Beaver Creek and um, it's cold. like really cold. days til my first hosting of a tupperware party:36, new tupperware containers sitting on my counter: 11, days ago they arrived: 4.

2006-11-29T09:07:00.000-05:00

ruined
ok. my sweet little boy who used to pose for me endlessly, is so over being a supermodel. now he makes this face whenever i stick a camera in his face. it isn't exactly a cute face. more like a i smell something really nasty face. the kind i make when i walk into his room after he made a monster poop in his diaper. so don't expect much with this year's xmas card. in fact, i might resend last years b/c now that was a cute baby face. ah he was young and a smiler back then! but now, if i could find a way to send a xmas card video, that would be cool, ala Harry Potter. b/c videos i have.
days til colorado ski vacation- childless: 7, blacktie events: 2, blacktie outfits purchased: 1

2006-11-11T18:26:00.000-05:00

houston, we have a blogger
ok. happy 18 months!!! some things really are just a matter of genetics. stevenjr was more insistent than normal today, as he fought me tooth and nail to get up on the stool so that he could play on the laptop. so i gave in and took a few pics to see what it looked like. what i wasn't ready for was what he typed into the google search toobar. "fpgrokprokpgop" I have 2 theories, from the Dora the Explorer episode he watched this morning, he wanted to learn more about the red-eyed tree frog. or He really is a democrat at heart and he was letting his voice be heard about those F'ing GOPs. After his first google, he had to make a conference call. kids these days... Dems:1, Repugnants:0, months since i was intimate with forceps:18, total pounds lost since giving birth: 50.

2006-10-30T13:12:00.000-05:00

there's no such thing as a pumpkin shortage, charlie brown
ok. so let's say its all hallow's eve eve and I don't have any pumpkins to celebrate tomorrow's candy night! and i heard people talk about a pumpkin shortage but i wasn't a believer and then our friendly organic farm cancelled their pumpkin fest b/c um no pumpkins. but i still was a disbeliever. but today, october 30th, when i decide to drive to the meadows farm and look for one, um there are NO pumpkins. as in, NONE. woops. could this be the year without a jack-o-lantern? eeek. so there you go, the "pumpkin shortage" is really for procrastinators. sooo this weekend we drove up to my cousin ELizabeth's for her 7th annual halloween party. this was our first appearance and it was awesome. she has REDEFINED decorating for the holidays. halloween was EVERYwhere. The party had a theme of Addams Family vs Munsters. I had a few ideas, but once again procrastinated and thursday(3 days before the party) went to about 3 thrift stores before i went to a party store and BOUGHT steve's gomez costume. which was beyond cheesy. but funny. if you want to see pics email me b/c we have posted them on our family site but im not broadcasting that here, b/c yeah, im in them too and this is a total anonymous blog! ficemook @ gmail .com soooo i was WEDNESDAY ADDAMS, and my $8 thrift store dress was AWESOME. i was of course searching to find a sweet morticia addams dress when i happen upon this PERFECT dress. did i mention it was $8. so it just so happens that when women are given the choice of being a sexy siren monster mom or the weird daughter, sexy wins. so you can only imagine all the hot moms at the party outdoing eachother and i was the ONLY WEDNESDAY. it rocked. woohoo. and in the future if anyone wants to borrow this dress, just let me know b/c i am keeping it forever. AND b/c of my costume purchasing...drum roll...I am creating a HALLOWEEN COSTUME box. for the attic where i will store all my wonderful costumes. ahhh nothing like the beginning of an era. Here is a sneak peak of little man steven with his haunted house that we have inflated on our lawn for the last few weeks. oh yeah, and if someone you love reads "This Old House" and finds an article about a good solution on how to get rid of chipmunks, do not volunteer to go to a gardening store and have to utter the phrase. "Do you sell coyote or fox urine?". and then stand there while the cashier blinks at you. blink blink blink. and no im not repeating myself! days til halloween:1, bags of candy purchased: 0,.

2006-10-24T12:13:00.000-05:00

cramming
ok. last week we switched from Cox Cable to Verizon FIOS b/c it was a great deal and i finally get my ESPN2HD so i can finally watch the women's national team play in HD. Im so sick of the stretched grainy look. but then there are all these channel listings to memorize. hello 800 channels. so as you can see i have been busy learning my new tv system. resetting my favorite channels, learning the new remote gizmo that can almost set the microwave for 30 seconds to heat stevenjr's lunch. come on people, there is not alot of time for parenting with 800 channels. and tivo was feeling all neglected b/c the cable installers screwed up and left us an HD DVR instead of plain HD box we ordered. so tivo is sitting there all pissed off caveman style and freaking FROZE the other night during desperate housewives. edy is such a biotch. steve had to talk tivo down from the ledge and we are all systems a go this morning. EXCEPT that the channel GUIDE decided to display NO INFORMATION. on every channel. so here i sit going cavewoman in the washington post and actually looking at the paper version of the TV GUIDE. horror! im relectant to call the cable peeps b/c then they are going to pull up my account and recognize that no one ever came back to pick up the illegal HD DVR that i didnt order! but i am secretly using b/c it is really cool to have a VCR thingy totally integrated into your tv channels. sorry tivo, but its true. no, its not as cute as you tivo, and no it doesn't have a cute blippy noise, but its just better. because i said so. so there you have it. i have been extremely preoccupied with TELEVISION. woo. i cant remember the last time i wrote that whole word out.

on a getting out of town note, steve and i went to Gloucester Mass this weekend for a romantic getaway BABY FREE!! it was really all about shannon's party(typo note:i wrote pastry there first instead of party which is beyond a mere slip of words b/c shannon is evil and alerted me to this struedel place in Rockport Ma which was so incredible. yum. apples. anyway...) so we had a good time at shannon's lobster casual party, where for the first time ever i wore high heels with slacks! yeah, i felt like a party girl. which i was, but in moderation mind you, thanks to the tiny wine glasses which created a pretty decent sunday morning wakeup. sadly, the beer glasses were not so small so steveO was another story. it was great and i got to see a lot of great people who i havent seen in a WAY TOO LONG time.
degrees last night @9:15 kickoff for my over 30 game: 41, time to score our first goal leading to victory: 45, time spent wishing i wore sweatpants: 90.

2006-10-11T11:45:00.000-05:00

babyproofing part 2
ok. so the first time we tried to babyproof, it was just about moving objects out of his reach, but now we have a new segment.

we took the extra effort to go to home depot, buy these total clearance rack cheapo cabinet locks and well, you can imagine the phrase " you get what you pay for" is running through my brain. um. score card update: baby: 2, mommy: 0.

2006-10-06T10:41:00.000-05:00

ok. last night, i went with beaner to see tim gunn of project runway fame speak at the corcoran. im not a fashionista. im not even close. but i do wish someone told tim who his audience would be at the 7pm talk. he droned on an on about his education(snore) and parrsons and blah blah blah. AND THEN he started talking about project runway. Then the audience woke up and started getting into it. he fielded questions and of the 15, 2 were not about PR. dont get me wrong, i love him, i love the way he speaks, the words he chooses, i just wanted to hear more about heidi and the designers, not his bio. but the free wine and apps afterwards helped. i really wanted to be able to post a pic of me and tim enjoying ourselves but i couldnt make it work. i am on operation get peekay back in DC, at leastfor a monthly visit!

in other news, last weekend steven got to meet miss agnes of blog. she is so cute, it is hard to not want to scoop her up and hug hug hug. they definitely had fun, laughing and cheek smooshing. or was that me. ha. usually stevenjr commands all the attention on the streets, but as we walked past cali pizza kitchen, THREE different window tables turned to look at her in the bjorn. she is that cute.

steven jr has had his first round of antibiotics in his 16 months of life, to clear up a bout of bronchitis. sheesh, im not winning any mom-md of the year awards, as i kept thinking he was teething. um, not when his wee chest is rattling. dress sizes dropped: 1, pounds lost: 9.6.

2006-09-28T13:55:00.000-05:00

being ma'amed
ok. i remember the first time i was ma'amed. I was in Laguna Beach after graduating college and was buying some ice cream from some little snot nosed dessert girl. i clearly remember her tone, and being 22, i didnt really think she meant i was old enough to be a ma'am, she was just being a biotch, before she even knew what a biotch was. so, now it's 2006 and i find myself in the el paso airport standing at the American Airlines kiosk, (feeling a bit hung over) when the screen prompts me to choose FIRST CLASS for an additional $45. hmmm... its only a 1.15 hour flight to dallas where i pick up my final leg to dulles, but im needing some liquid and these bastards wont let me bring my fluids on board! so i madly click the first class button. voila! im first class. mom gone wild. so i board with all my fellow first classers. and of the 16 of us, 10 happen to be in their army fatigues. and they are giddy. like really giddy. so excited, they try all the gadgets, yelling back and forth. so i sit down and greet my own personal private. He asked me if there were different ways to adjust the first class seat, as if i would know! so im feeling all like a regular first classer, then shamefully admit, i didnt know. so now he knows, im a $45 first class scammer. and worst yet, the whole flight was free b/c it was with my miles. so im really a faux first class high roller. Then, he MA'AMED me. I'm sure the army teaches these little brats how to be nice to the elderly, but I AM NOT A MA'AM. And you can forget my little "thank you for serving" speech that I was working on, without sounding too much like a bush-basher. hummpt. illegal liquid substances seized from my bag: 1, fluids provided in first class: 2, fluids needed: 100.

2006-09-27T11:26:00.000-05:00

OMB !
ok. Oh my Blog, I am sorry for all my sins. It has been a month since my last post. I totally have been thinking about you. But as the days went on, it became harder and harder to post, so I just waited til my one month later post. so now for my essay on how i ended my summer vacation. well, i had myself a girl gone wild trip to el paso TEXAS! Shannon and Mike were married on Labor Day weekend and i basically invited myself, proclaimed myself the role of maid of honor(i don't do matron) and bought a green dress that the bride OKed. so there I was in El Paso, being on my own for the first time since I was pregant pre- May 2005. No husband, no baby, no rules! well of course there were rules, but i kinda forgot about them. I enjoyed some wine, some margaritas, a cigarette! eek. it was really gross and after puff #3, i was totally ready to barf, but it was the principle! i was a mom gone wild and i needed to do something wild. kids dont try this at home. plus smoking alone, in the rain, outside a hotel, really isnt all that fun. anyway, it was a trip of firsts b/c I got to ride in an RV!!! (see left)woohooooo. it was awesome. we went to White Sands national park in New Mexico(see right) which was really cool and totally worth the trip. the sand was so cool it look like snow, or fairy dust. you choose. i will post pictures for you to understand more clearly. oh yeah, the wedding was so nice and shannon of course looked AMAZING. fall season soccer record: 5-1, goals i scored: 2, assists: 4.

2006-08-27T21:27:00.000-05:00

undiscovered
ok. it has been a while since i last blogged. so not to bore you with catchup, i'll get to the good stuff. steven and i went to nordstroms and the fashion show was a bust. AND they wanted me to BUY with a 15% discount(oh how generous) this ADORABLE ralph lauren $100 outfit from the fall collection that the nice salelady picked out. so this fashion show is not complete with free swag for the talent. nope, its just a scam to get over-eager-total-egomaniacal parents to "pretend" their child is a star model when you get nothing. nothing for free that is. so we skipped it, since they changed the whole plan when they didnt get enough children. oh yeah, the jeans he was to be modeling were $49.50. yeah, he is in size 18 months. please. time spent picking out outfitin minutes: 30, haircuts considered:2, seconds to determine there was no way in hell i was showing up for a backdrop for photos in the kids department of nordstrom: 1.

2006-08-23T09:03:00.000-05:00

discovered
ok. purchasing a pair of nike sneaks for little man last week in the pentagon city mall has led to his first runway walk! yep, stevenjr will be in a fashion show at nordstroms on saturday. too funny. b/c a. yes he can walk, but he cant follow direction. b. he is a maniac c. if he sees wires and electrical outlets, he will be rolling in cables before they can get him down the runway. it's a good thing grandad got a good cover shot for the tabloids. but since something is wacked with blogger, you will have to wait to see his magnum. which mary mary said i would get if i saw zoolander. which i did see, but never got the reference. so this ones for her. shoes purchased:1, shoes tried on: 5, tantrums induced trying to leave shoe area:2.

2006-08-17T12:10:00.000-05:00

itty bitty titty committee
ok. i call to order this emergency meeting. sometime around pregnancy i placed my VS bras in a box and said, goodbye, for a while. I did think that I would once be reuinted with them. so this was just a short break. then the 10 months of extreme body makeover took place. then the 12 months of nursing. 22 months is apparently the length of time for me to think i have big boobs as a rule. i was wearing 2 jogbras to strap them down for soccer, isnt that proof enough. now 3 months later, not preggo and certainly not nursing, reality has struck. i am not my old self. i am not my lactating self. i am a new person with a bra size, i have never known. and i cant fit into my old ones. i cant bear to buy new ones. target bras suck. and so does gravity. sizes up: 3, sizes down:4.

2006-08-12T19:03:00.000-05:00

whirlwind tour
ok. so i decided somewhat last minute to drive to massa2cents for a bridal shower. and i decided to skip the usual visit/stopover at my cousins in watchung nj, exactly 3.5 hours from me in VA and 3.5 from my parents in western ma. so i blazed on a bright shiny saturday morning. 5:45am wakeup call. loaded the car and cooler with baby's lunch/bfast, and changed a sleeping baby's diaper in his crib. but left him in his PJs. and we were off. this time, i had a copilot. mr 7"(dont get dirty) portable DVD player. so after 4.5 hours, we stopped for a pit stop for gas and our diaper changes, in CT. hello. 6 states travelled and we needed gas. so after we hit the powder room, we were off but stevenjr was done with this ride. so on went laurie berkner, followed by the muppet show. after listening to the muppet show at my age, i realized how adult that show is. something i never realized b/c um last time i saw it i wasn't an adult. still not sure i am but now i get all the jokes. and its a good find. so go buy it. hours travelled back to VA:8, most expensive gas price:$3.48, sunshine delays:3.

2006-08-04T11:12:00.000-05:00

order in this here court, ya hear?
ok. we dressed like we were going to a summer wedding. actually, steve was in his wedding outfit, complete with wedding tie- see picture- minus rose. I wore a flowered dress that i actually fit in! woohoo. we were on time. we were nervously scanning the crowd of plaintiffs/defendants for our evildoer. we didnt see him. the judge came in, we stood. we sat. we waited. we saw 4 plaintiffs go before judge with no defendant present. they all won like within 5 seconds. meanwhile, i don't see our evil floor man, and i have a 2 page script detailing our ordeal. i started to freak out. we cannot go up there with all this info. then a real case goes forward complete with spanish translator, who also looked like she was attending the same wedding. dressed in her loud black/white floral dress, she ran from plaintiff to defendant, and back. and forth. it was funny. so the judge calls us up again to see if our other party is here. nope. so we go forward and stand at this wooden partition thingy. I was looking for mr brady to drop the book. the judge asked us for the contract. he asked for the cashed check, which we did not have b/c the bank never sent it although we paid for the fedex! but guess what, there is this oath thing and we were under it and the judge ALLOWED that as proof. sweet! he read over the contract. and awarded judgement to us!!! wooooooohoooooooooo. we didnt show any of our pics, or our returned unopened envelope with small claims court info. NOW, the funny thing about small claims court is that you as the plaintiff have to get the $ on your own. There is no sheriff appearing at the buttheads door. but we have a friend who has a few collections agents who owe him some favors. and boy do we need a favor. pay us, you stinking slime ball! i wish he held him in contempt. phooey! hours preparing for court appearance: 10, minutes in front of judge: 5, judgement awarded: $2000 + interest from april 2006+ court fees, hours spent in Fairfax county court room 2F: 1.25, feeling of satisfaction: priceless.