i HATE sausage

tj got me tickets to a bulls game for my birthday - hopefully he won't be too surprised when i give him a divorce for christmas. i'm not sure what i would expect... here's just a few other gems from the past 13 years:

christmas 1999: a gym membership. according to him it wasn't because i had gained weight. according to the membership card i was 5'6 and weighed 120 lbs. either he was an idiot or he filled it out when i was in 4th grade.

birthday 2002: a scarecrow on a piece of plywood with a basket of mums attached to it. this would've been a great gift if i was 62, didn't live with my parents, and enjoyed shopping at craft fairs.

valentines day 2003: fresh off the scarecrow he redeemed himself with a pair of size S hooters sweat pant capris. i'm not kidding.

christmas 2007: cooking pans. he obviously didn't find out from my dad what happens to a man that buys his wife kitchen shit for a major holiday.

mother's day 2011:

(that last one was left blank because that's what i got... nothing. but, he made up for it this mother's day by going golfing all damn day.)

well, i gotta go now and eat the breakfast he made me... egg and sausage omelettes.

not an easy solution

i ran out of contact solution and was surprised i couldn't find anymore because the last time i bought it was at costco, so i figured i was good 'till at least 2014. contact solution is one thing i'm super quick to run out and replace; however, when you have two kids under two, there is no "super quick" about anything. making a trip to target for saline actually requires more logistical planning than a royal wedding.

the first thing i like to definitely do before leaving the house is feed london. i'm all for breastfeeding in public, but since i'm not in college anymore, i do try to reduce the amount of times i publicly flash my nips. the next thing i do is pack roz's "snacks."  homegirl needs a 4 course buffet available to her in the car at all times. the hard part of this is getting the entire food pantry packed into the diaper bag without her seeing me pack it. in order to do this i give her random "missions" that she finds fun to distract her: "roz, go count pieces of dog food... roz, go find a christmas tree in your bedroom... roz, go see if you can move the couch...

we get loaded into the car and head out. we had been in the car for approximately 27 seconds when roz drops her damn juice cup. my choice is to either stop and get it for her, or listen to her frantically say "juuuuuice" 754 times over the course of our 15 minute trip. i pulled over and warned her that if she were to drop it again she would be out of luck - fully knowing that if she dropped it, my ass would be pulling over. (london can't stay asleep during a juice tangent, and i like london asleep.)

i pull into target and london decides it's time for a growth spurt and that she needs to eat again. i hop into the 3 inch space between the two car seats and start to feed her. while i'm doing this, roz decides she has to get out of the car seat. now. now. right NOW. i explain to roz that mommy is feeding sissy and that when she is done we are going to go look at toys. won't that be fuuuuuuun? doesn't matter. roz is red in the face and trying to houdini out of the straps - which then start to strangulate her neck because something in that small brain of hers doesn't tell her to stop leaning forward once air restriction occurs. i'm trying to undo her car seat with my left hand while keeping my right boob nice and still for london's second lunch in 45 minutes.

we make it inside. because it is such an ordeal to run a single errand, i had a small list of other things i could get while there. as i'm looking for kiddie toothpaste i hear london blowing that second lunch out of her ass. roz starts giggling and says "poof!" i pick up the toothpaste and decide to go ahead and take the girls to the bathroom to change london so we don't have to rush through my shopping list. london is fed and changed and decides to snooze. as soon as she drifts off, i hear roz grunting:
me: "ohmygodroz, are you pooping?"
roz: "poof."
me: "well, that's awesome. couldn't you have poofed when your sister did?"
roz: "no."

roz is changed. i have all of my stuff in the cart. we are ready to leave, except i did want to look at shoes for roz real quick since london was still sleeping. i get roz out of the cart so she can try a pair on. i didn't like how they looked and went to take them off - well... apparently she loved them and felt it was unnecessary to take them off. what occurred over the next 10 minutes... well, i won't go into detail, but let's just say that at one point roz was laying flat in the middle of target like a starfish screaming her head off as i told her monsters were going to come and eat her unless she stood up in the next 2 seconds. next thing you know, london is awake and letting the 3 people inside of the store who weren't already aware of our presence know that she was pissed off. really pissed off.

we are on our way home. you-know-who drops her damn juice cup again. as i'm trying to explain to a 22 month old what "karma" is, you-know-who #2 decides that her 95th percentile stomach needs fed again. we get inside the house: roz has her juice, london has my boob... and i forgot my damn saline solution.

i'm joining a fight club

well, i've hit the 6 week mark of post-partumhood which means i'm able to start working out again. i've spent the past 3 years of my life pregnant and/or in surgery recovery - the only exercise regimen i've been on in the past year is moving from my bed to the toilet without assistance. i hate exercising, but i have to stay somewhat fit to keep up with my ironman of a husband.

when i agreed to marry tj he was "husky" and ate 4 mixing bowls of cereal in the morning. i was naturally anorexic. immediately following our wedding my metabolism came to a halt (probably stunted by all the boxed wine and fried zucchini) and tj decided to become bruce jenner. (the decathlete bruce jenner, not the i-look-like-a-burn-victim bruce kardashian.) t.j. became part of some running club where regular marathons weren't good enough so they ran 32 mile "ultra-marathons." in honor of this, i switched to "ultra-light" marlboros. every time t.j. came home with another blue ribbon i'd drink a pabst.

now with the girls here, t.j. doesn't have time to run 3 hours a day, so he gets up at 4:45 every single morning of his life and does the insanity workout. if you don't know what the insanity program is, let's just say it very aptly named; it is most definitely insane to wake up every day to a black man screaming at and abusing you. i'll tell you two people it didn't work for: me and tina turner.

so i've decided on turbo jam and boxing. if you have ever witnessed turbo jam, you'll understand my wanting to take boxing. when i look this stupid in the basement, t.j. will laugh at me. when t.j. laughs at me, i will want to be able to kick his ass. since most of you can't laugh at me doing turbo jam, let's laugh at this poor lady turbo jammin' it up in beast mode:

cornhole champion

doctor:"she's breech, so we'll see you tomorrow morning at 5 for a c-section."
me: "f***ing great."
t.j.: "so, um... could you just do that tying tubes thing while you're in there?"

because i do nothing but google, i knew that a c-section is no joke and it is a major abdominal surgery. i immediately started flipping through the webMD encyclopedia that i have etched in my head and kept thinking about all of the complications that could arise due to this procedure; breastfeeding was my immediate concern. i have been so focused on not walking around with that damn breast pump sucking the life out of my tits that breastfeeding had become my obsession while pregnant; i was going to make it work come hell or high water. upon hearing "c-section" my heart sank - i knew that establishing good breastfeeding habits was going to be just one of many things complicated by a non-vaginal delivery.

i got dressed and we were sent home for what was surely going to be a restless 5 hours of sleep. as we were walking out to the car i reached out to hold my husband's hand. t.j. and i have been through so much in our 14 years together and it was in that panic-stricken moment that i needed his comfort more than any other time in my life - you can just imagine how quickly my nerves were calmed when the man i love spoke from the depths of his heart...

"do you think the nurses will notice if i'm wearing the same outfit tomorrow morning?"

"yeah, t.j., that's what the f***ing nurses are here for - to make sure you are wearing freshly laundered clothing at all times. they don't give a shit about sick babies or saving lives - they just need to make sure while your wife's bladder and intestines are sitting out on the operating table that your f***ing pocket-T smells like a lotus blossom."

as soon as we sat down in the car i knew that for my sanity i needed to shift my thinking and put my big girl panties on. there was no turning back and it was what it was. then, it happened - the tears came pouring down my face. i was laughing. hysterically. see, about 24 hours prior to my induction was set to begin i ate 3 ears of corn. what does that have to do with anything? well, if you remember correctly, my biggest fear is shitting during childbirth. clearly the decision to eat something identifiable was due to pregnancy brain. for 24 hours i had worried myself sick over the possibility of shooting corn out of my ass. so there it was: the way i was able to be ok with having my child cut out of my stomach alien-style was knowing that there was no possibility of me pegging my OBGYN with the freshest sweet corn this side of the mason-dixon.

after they filleted me open with a scalpel and ripped a human outside of my uterus, our little ginger, london elizabeth jaynes, made her appearance at 7:14 am on tuesday, august 7, 2012. she is the best baby on earth (nothing like her sister.) she only gets up once a night and never cries. i've already told her all about the world, how lucky she is to have me and t.j. as her parents, and why ron paul is the best man to lead this country.




welcome to our crazy world, london!



dehydration + maggie moos - gallbladder = hospital

well, i was back at saint anthony's hospital saturday night. apparently after having my gallbladder removed i was supposed to stop eating anything that tastes good. i'm not supposed to eat dairy, fried foods, processed foods, or sugar. they did say, though, that i'm allowed to have water, lettuce, and tree bark.

i woke up thinking i was dying. i woke t.j. up and told him my thoughts (that i was dying) and he said, "give me a minute - it's 12:30 am." i waited and then at 12:31 i reminded him of my impending death. because of my fake medical degree i have granted myself after obsessively surfing babycenter.com, google, and webMD, i had diagnosed myself with pre-eclampsia. i had severe upper abdominal pain, 2 days of headaches, and i'm in my third trimester: clearly i was dying from pre-eclampsia. while t.j. was trying to figure out if i was really in enough pain to warrant yet another medical bill, i'm explaining to him that not only was i pre-eclamptic, but that i was going to have to deliver a 34 week old baby via c-section within the next couple of hours and that he never did get that damn closet organizer put up in the nursery; something he would surely regret because when i'm dead and gone i won't be able to help him find where the diapers are 5x a day for 18 months. (ON THE FREAKING TOP LEFT SHELF, DAMMIT!)

t.j. called our neighbor to come stay with rozlyn (even though i was approaching the pearly gates, i still had enough sense to know not to wake that monster up.) the neighbor arrived and after reminding t.j. that i was dying, he finally started hauling ass to the hospital - at one point he even reached 2 miles above the posted speed limit.

pregnancy has wreaked havoc on me. i have been pregnant - at some point - in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 with only one kid (currently) to show for it. i'm also down 2 organs, one tooth, lots of hair and 4,756 cans of miller lite. just when i think it cannot get worse they say i have to collect my piss in a gas tank for 24 hours and then bring it back the following day. easy enough, right? well after finding out i was dehydrated, they rehydrated me with enough water to fill the atlantic and then tell me that every time i pee that i have to pee in a cup and then transfer that pee into the mouth of a gas tank. i said, "look lady - i cannot even see my vagina and i'm a horrible shot - is there a certain amount i can shoot for, or do i really have to collect every ounce of piss over the next 24 hours?" she informs me if it's easier, i can just piss directly into the gas tank. riiiiiiiight.

i would really love to just have a normal pregnancy and be one of those women who are all about feeling like maternal goddesses; however, after being admitted to the hospital with dehydration issues all the while missing a tooth, sporting both a chipped manicure and a tramp stamp, flashing my crotch on accident, and spending the weekend pissing all over myself i have come to the following conclusion: i'm the lindsey lohan of pregnancy.

is that your lawn or are you just happy to see me?

i have 3 proposals due in the next 2 weeks. i have guests coming over the holiday weekend. i have meal planning to do, groceries to buy, floors to clean, nails to paint, a pregnant belly to get spray tanned and a toddler putting "fish ba" (goldfish in my bra.)

meanwhile, t.j. is in the front yard manicuring his penis.

you see, t.j. has this obsession with doing stuff. it doesn't matter what kind of stuff, t.j. just loves to do stuff. well, this week his stuff includes pointless landscaping. it started with the idea of making roz a play area. sounds nice, right? well, after digging up the sod and placing the pavers he all of a sudden became a landscape aficionado. since saturday he has built a play area, removed a pine tree out of the front yard, dug up all the grass around the mailbox area (apparently he's been meaning to do this for a while - why, i have no clue) and dug this giant cock out of my precious lawn:

i'm supposed to calm down and trust him. according to t.j. this is going to look real nice after he puts a bunch of mulch in there and plants a maple tree. at the end of the day, however, the truth remains: our yard has now been forever tainted.

(i just ended that blog with a taint joke, FYI.)

expecting #2

as i approach the last trimester of this pregnancy, i am purposely reminding myself of the hell that childbirth is. how do i do this? i youtube videos of women in third world countries who give birth on floors of cow dung huts who receive their episiotomies via machete. in reality, my own baby story will be nothing like this. truly, the only thing i have in common with those ladies is the fact that our nipples are the size of dinner plates and i may have been speaking in zulu when roz started crowning.

by nature, i'm a worrier. this is how t.j. and i really differ: although i worry about anything and everything that could happen, when catastrophe strikes, I'm cool as a cucumber. t.j., on the other hand, worries about NOTHING then drops f-bombs over spilled milk. this is why i am constantly struggling to educate him on the ins and outs of bringing a human into this world without terrifying him. my somewhat limited experience in the health care industry - combined with my addiction to google - has enlightened me to the many things that can go awry during labor and delivery. i do not torture him with the childbirthing classes offered by the hospital; i feel like these classes are more for women who choose to feel childbirth. people like me who would prefer a horse tranquilizer from the neck down do not benefit from lamaze. i like to enjoy bringing my girls into this world the same way i enjoyed my 20's: intoxicated.

so, what is the biggest fear i have? birth defects? pulmonary embolism? toxemia? shoulder dystocia? hemorrhaging out and dying leaving t.j. to raise our precious girls all alone? although these things do cross my mind, they don't come near my deepest, darkest fear of completely shitting all over the table while pushing a human out of my vagina.

yep - pooping. pooping myself is what i fear. many of you cannot believe i'm saying this out loud. i, however, know for a fact after talking to my girlfriends that i'm simply doing the world a favor by bringing this to light. think of it as the kony 2012 for expecting moms. did we know pooping during childbirth was possible? sure - anything is possible. but did you know that this phenomenon strikes around 65% of us?

bam! now you do.

so what do you do with this information? if you are an expecting mom you might be comforted by the fact that someone has finally verbalized your biggest fear. if you are an expecting mom who has never thought about this, you are cussing me out. and, if you are an expecting dad - well, chances are you just shit yourself after learning that this even happens, so we'll just call it even now and go on with our day.

another hair raising pregnancy

the immediate onset of unwanted body hair occurs simultaneously as i’m peeing on my pregnancy tests. as soon as the “PREGNANT” appears on the stick, i sprout a black nipple hair. about 2 weeks after the positive test my “happy trail” arrives - and boy is that an appropriate term; nothing makes me happier than dozens of long black hairs marching down my pale, irish, pregnant navel with the sole intent of ruining my life. i’ve learned to just deal with it, as i know it is a temporary affliction. for 9 months i have to add in new body parts to graze with my venus goddess razor - and boy is that an appropriate name; nothing makes me feel more like a goddess than swiping blades across my jaw line to keep pubes from invading my cheekbones.

keep in mind that my one true obsession in life is the need to shave DAILY; this means during pregnancy i spend approximately 78% of my day shaving. this morning was no different than any other: i had just nabbed the unibrow, the pits, and the chin when i started heading towards the oh-so-happy trail... and then it happened: i sliced myself - bad. i started bleeding - a lot. as happiness and blood filled the tub i realized that i could very well be the first person to bleed out from trying to hack down their happy trail. and then that realization led to another realization: i would probably be the smoothest cadaver the morgue has ever detained.

after putting a band-aid the size of a small child on my stomach i made the decision (for the first time in my life)to actually not tell t.j. something. i would like for him to continue thinking that behind the shower curtain i’m a naturally hairless wonder frolicking in the warm water as opposed to edward scissorhands chopping up limbs and nipples. however, my secret was not so safe after roz delivered a swift kick to my wound area making me screech in pain. i tried to lightly explain my hair issue to t.j. (by “lightly” i mean i may have withheld the fact that i become an armenian sloth and have to nair my earlobes before listening to my ipod.)

i go on to explain to t.j. the story, and here is how that conversation went:

lars: “...so next thing you know, i’ve hit right by my scar on my belly button and i’m bleeding like a stuck pig. i mean, i really cut myself, t.j.... really bad. and i cannot believe it hurts this much. i have never had a cut before that hurt so bad. and it’s deep, too. .. a really deep cut.”
tj: *in a dead serious tone* “did you think you cut down to the baby?”
lars: *also in a dead serious tone* “yes, t.j. - i gave myself a c-section.”
tj: “did she try to stick her hand out?”
lars: “yes, t.j. - our baby tried to come out of a razor nick and i had to shove her back down and tell her it wasn’t time yet.”

because of this conversation and the laughter that ensued, i will continue to call it my happy trail.

nuevo amigo

meeting a new friend for roz means running at someone under 4 ft. tall, smacking them somewhere on their body and then begin to talk their little ears off. she screams, points, laughs, hits again (lovingly), and then follows them around as they try to escape her. she is very aggressive and in-your-face and i've seen more than one kid look at her like she was crazy. (trust me - i know the look.)

the other day there was one little girl that seemed to be overwhelmed by all the kids running around at the park. she was very reserved and standing alone off to the side. in other words: she was easy prey for roz. i swooped in right as roz was about to face-palm her and said, "rozzy, can you say hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii?" the little girl just stared blankly at me, then turned her attention to roz. i said, "rozlyn, let's see if your friend wants to go over to the slide with you." just then the little girl's mom walked up to us. we did the whole "how-old-is-she-oh-wow-she-is-so-cute" introduction that all moms have to endure - even when you have to lie right through your teeth because their child has a face that only they could love. the mom then explained to me that her daughter didn't speak english.

(remember that post where i do awkward things in uncomfortable moments... ok,...)

after i quickly profiled the toddler to determine her ethnicity, i decided she was spanish speaking. scrambling to remember what dora the explorer has taught us, i bent over and grabbed rozzy's hand, moved right down into the girl's face and... here's where i evidently lost my mind... began saying (way too loudly) the following words in an odd repetitive sequence:

CALIENTE, BUENO, AMIGO. CALIENTE, BUENO, AMIGO.

the moral of this story: if roz has to live the rest of her life with people looking at her like she is nuts, she at least gets it honestly from her loco mother.

no longer pinterested

"Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes." - pinterest.com

"pinterest is a virtual shit show of do-it-yourself fails and redneck crafts beautifully photographed to make one feel that they are making classy shit for their home. pinterest results in hours of letting fat accumulate on your ass while you "pin" weight watchers recipes and toddlers walking around tarred and feathered with glue and glitter." - me

there is one pin that when i saw it i immediately "repinned" it with a smile from ear-to-ear wondering in the back of my head (as i do with everything i see on pinterest) "why didn't i think of that?!"  this pin actually evoked raw emotion from me - i immediately yearned for warm weather and shishkabobs marinating in the refrigerator. i imagined all of my friends and family gathered in a nantucket-ish backyard barbeque and we are all wearing crisp white linens, just standing around shitting out rainbows and unicorns. at one point, paula deen joins us with a robust "hey ya'll!" as her two flaming gay sons walk in with mouth-watering layered salads. here is the "pin" that made me title a money-saving envelope as "summer 2012":

You take a picnic table, remove one of the boards in the middle of the table and replace it with a gutter.  Fill the gutter with ice, and you’ve got yourself a beverage cooler extraordinaire!  Brilliant!

later that evening on the way back from dinner i'm explaining to tj this brilliance i have stumbled upon. as i viewed this pin online, i was daydreaming about social elegance and food network stars. when tj clarified what i was asking his assistance for, the more realistic picture of this project dawned on me: there i am 7 months pregnant sweating my ass off holding a kid on my hip and filling our brand new beer-gutter up with some miller lite bottles while people look out their windows explaining to their children what a hillbilly is.

i took my earnest savings from the summer 2012 envelope and transferred it to the baby 2012 envelope and vowed to stop the pinsanity.

i'm a dirty, dirty girl

last october i started researching a new way to eat called "clean eating." the gist of it is basically only eating foods that are from the ground, from a tree, or from a vine. i would only buy my meat from a butcher that sells meat from grain-fed, hormone-free cows. (if you aren't drinking organic milk, you are drinking cancer. true story.) this is a lifestyle change and it definitely ups the ante on my current organic-only produce and dairy rule. they say a great way to start making the positive changes slowly is to not ingest anything containing an ingredient you cannot pronounce fluently. changes like this are actually easy in my house - if i told tj toilet water warded of cancer he would make our coffee with it. so that was it: we were going "clean."

then the dumbasses at meijers put oatmeal cream pies on sale for 3 boxes at $5.

i've had 3 oatmeal cream pies today and it's not even 2:00. i started feeling really guilty after the third one and decided to check out the dreaded ingredient list of what my new favorite addiction is made of. the following is a list of things i have ingested not once, not twice, but three times today:

Corn Syrup, Flour Enriched Bleached, Barley Malt, Niacin, Iron Reduced, Wheat Flour, Folic Acid (Vitamin aB), Oat(s), Cottonseed Oil Partially Hydrogenated, Soybean(s) Oil Partially Hydrogenated, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Sugar, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Vegetable(s) Shortening, Ammonium Bicarbonate, Baking Soda, Dextrose, Emulsifier(s), Contains 22% or less Leavening, Milk, Molasses, Polysorbate 60, Raisin(s), Salt, Sorbitan Monostearate, Soy Lecithin, Water, Whey, Mono and Diglycerides, Corn Starch, Caramel Color, Carrageenan, Cocoa, Coconut, Color(s), Egg(s), Egg(s) Whites, Apple(s) Evaporated, Milk Non-Fat Dry, Red 40, Sorbic Acid Freshness Preserved By Spice(s), Yellow 5, Flavor(s) Natural & Artificial, Sulfite Treated

what the hell is thiamine mononitrate? i don't know either - but lucky for me i can pronounce it fluently.

bad connection

my phone rings today:
me:"hello?"
costco girl with hideous outfit: "larissa?"
me: "yes?"
costco girl with hideous outfit: "hi it's christiana from costco - we met there around the holidays..."
me: "hello... helllo? hello??"
then i frantically hung up.

that's right - i faked not hearing her voice on the other end of the phone because i got super nervous; like, my arm pits got hot nervous. i'll be honest - ever since i blogged about her (and her hideous outfit) i've been worried that she would try to stalk me on facebook (which is always what i do after meeting someone new) and that she would find this website and then, consequently, realize i'm a shallow bitch. so i hung up on her. she immediately called back and i immediately sent her to voicemail. then my voicemail icon appeared on my phone - i freaking HATE when that icon is on the screen. i needed the icon to be removed but my pits started getting moist just from the thought of listening to her message. i called my voicemail and held the phone far away from my ear like it was on speaker phone - but it wasn't on speaker phone, it's just something dumb i do when i'm listening to messages that i don't want to hear. after about 5 minutes the ridiculous and bizarre nature of my behavior started sitting in and i started laughing - hard.

after a quick reflection and replay in my mind i realized: i act like a freaking weirdo in situations that i'm not comfortable in. then, after acting like a weirdo, i laugh like a hyena while having weird body convulsions. moist pits are the least of my problems - i'm gonna end up on the 7th floor of miami valley hospital someday if the right person observes this happening.

it seems like a lot of these instances are at work. bosses make me uncomfortable because, well - they have authority over me and that makes me super uncomfortable. i don't like anyone having any sort of power over me and this results in maniacal behavior on my part sometimes. in a staff meeting my boss started talking about a very upper level manager within our parent company who has the last name "stanky." out of nowhere i blurted out "STANKSTA THE GANGSTA!" that's not a lie. then i turned bright red, got really hot, my pits started sweating and i made weird sounds that strangely resembled laughter. it was all very, very odd... and i'm giggling just thinking about it.

one time (ok, this was last week) i went to mcdonalds. in an effort of trying to watch my diet a bit better, i decided i needed a cheeseburger but i could do without the fries and the pop. i would just drink the bottled water i had with me. so i went through the drive-thru and ordered a cheeseburger. immediately after they handed me the bag i regretted the decision of not getting fries. so i pulled back through the drive-thru. as i was ordering i realized how weird this was that i had just got a cheeseburger so i tried to make a slight transition into a deeper voice. on my way to the window to pay i realized that i may have fooled this chick with my deep voice, but she would surely recognize me since i just went through the line. my plan: hand her my debit card to pay while pretending to dig in my purse that was in my passenger side seat and avoid eye contact all together. well, halfway through this charade i realized how dumb this all was and i lost it. and i mean, i lost it. (i peed a little.)

part of me wishes that i wasn't so awkward in situations that i'm usually responsible for creating. the other part knows that christiana is reading this and i just want to say: your outfit wasn't really that bad.

picked up... then dropped

so 3 weeks ago i got asked for my number right in the middle of the book section of costco. i obliged - i gave my number and still haven't received a call. i asked tj how i looked and he said "really good." (which happens to be his standard answer whether i'm sporting a ball gown or pajamas.)

the chick who asked me for my number was another mom that looked to be around my age and had a baby close to roz's age. her initial pick-up line was something about roz's happy demeanor. we continued on with normal mom banter: birthday, food preferences, personality, clothing sizes, etc... i mentioned that there were no good places close by for kids her age to play at besides gymboree - which was still far and too expensive. she said she took her daughter to a place every week and that we should "come along next time." so that was it - a date. we exchanged numbers. we said our goodbyes and i bolted over to tj who was standing in the aisle where you can purchase 372 gallons of fabric softener.

tj: "wow, you may have actually just found the mom friend you've been trying to find since we moved here."
lars: "yeah..."
tj: "you don't seem very excited about it - i thought you'd be happier when you came over here."
lars: "did you see the shoes she was wearing? with those pants?"
tj: "ARE YOU KIDDING ME, LARISSA?!? HER SHOES?!? YOU'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT FINDING A NEW MOM FRIEND FOR 2 YEARS AND YOU AREN'T SURE ABOUT HER BECAUSE OF HER SHOES?!?"
lars: "what, t.j.? i'm just saying... i would never wear those shoes... especially with those pants. of course, i'd probably never wear those pants either."

tj then checked out of the conversation by saying we needed to go buy 258 cans of soup. i knew i had screwed up. tj was right - i'm not in high school and some one's style should not be a deterrent to a possible life-long friendship. later that night however, i started thinking: if i were single and a guy asked me for my number and i wasn't attracted to him, i wouldn't give him my number to begin with. so, was this really any different? i wasn't "attracted" to this girl as a potential friend - and mainly because of her hideous outfit.

i had just started really pondering this situation when tj walked in - wearing the crocs he bought on our honeymoon 7 years ago, with white high-ankle socks that were probably purchased a year later, black mesh shorts and his 1999 pirate football sweatshirt - worn inside out. right then and there i realized that i have created a family with this croc pirate standing before me whom i love very much and if this chick does call, i will accept her date offer regardless of her fashion sense (or lack thereof.)

she might, however, break up with me if she ever discovers i have a blog.

like gang wars... but worse

here is a little revelation i discovered about myself recently: i'm the kind of mom who wants to whoop another mom's ass in the playland at the mall. you may or may not know that, in general, people annoy me. however, i have found that the "hovering mother" annoys me more than khloe kardashian's voice (the one that she uses when she is on the phone and/or in bed with lamar.) not only do hovering mothers hover their own kids - they tend to hover over other people's kids if they feel like that kid's mother is not doing a proper job of hovering. more than one hovering mother has hovered roz. this is because i'm the antithesis of a hovering mother - i'm the mom who lets their child get clotheslined a couple of times before suggesting a different route around the playland. hovering mothers aren't the only mothers at the playland who i'd like to punch in the throat - here is a snapshot of moms during our latest trip there:

1. the cell phone mother: this mother cannot put her phone down long enough to help her kid who is dangling upside down from the fake mountain.
2. the zen mother: this mother wants to discuss how infant massage and lavender can help tame my out-of-control toddler.
3. the baby mama mother: she has 7 kids; none of which look alike and they are all picking on the zen mother's kids.
4. the goddard school mother: her kid was speaking in sentences at 8 months... not that she is bragging - she can't believe it herself.
5. the screaming every 5 seconds mother: what good is screaming commands at your child if the entire mall cannot hear you?

so what mother am i? i guess i'm the white trash mother since i threatened the baby mama mother to watch her brats a little better. doing so made the cell phone mother shut-up for a second, the goddard school mother was appalled by my language, the zen mother was very uncomfortable and the screaming mother couldn't hear me. but, i guess you could consider me a successful mother because the baby mama mother rounded up all 7 of her nonidentical kids and left the playland. bam - then i was a happy mother.