Bland or Gross?

How could our day be bland or gross when it starts with a car ride like this?

It couldn't. I'll get to that silly title at the end. On Saturday, we took Madelynn to the local amusement park. After she was stamped and ringed like a class A cut of beef,

we went straight to the rides. Now Megan, she had text me that morning and said something like "Put her on the rides this time. She'll love it! Mase loved it, she'll totally love it. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!" So Jeffrey straps Babe into the little boat, and we stand as close as possible clapping and "yay"ing. Madelynn was petrified, literally. As in, immobile, unable to scream/move/breathe. After the third lap in the boat, my tiny statue found her senses once again and SCREAMED. I looked at the 14 year old ride operator and said "I'm gonna need that baby." He was quick, picked her up gently and whisked her right into my arms. Obviously Madelynn wasn't the first tot that he had rescued from the baby boat ride of doom.

After the terrifying boat incident, we played it safe and only put Babe on rides that Jeffrey or I could get on.

Not that she liked them any better.

Fright induced pants crapping makes a girl thirsty, so we spent quite a bit of time at the giant lion-mouth-water-fountain. She won't ride a boat, but putting her face in a lion's mouth doesn't phase her. ?

Onto games, Babe won some fabulous junk toys by picking the three best ducks in the duck game. The glasses didn't even break until I touched them!

Without even one cloud to give warning, the sky opened up to a downpour-

This was NOT a slight shower, we're talking buckets of rain here. Forced to hide in the old pony pen (which still smelled faintly of dirty pony), hide and seek was our only play option.

Which landed us the biggest smile of the day. Screw rides.

Hiding from the rain in a pavilion, Madelynn showed Pappy how much she cares.

A whole bunch. Back in the wagon, Mads chewed on every cheap toy that she had won,

and then crashed. So cute.

So my title, when I was a just a youngun' this park was called "Bland's Park," but they recently changed the name to "Delgrosso's." So Jeffrey and I were discussing the name change, and he said they changed it from Bland's because they sell spaghetti sauce. Well why would they do that, Jeffrey? "Because they don't want people to think that their sauce is bland. Duh." So now people are going to think their sauce is gross, right? "I don't get it." He's a funny, funny guy.

My Bed Looks So LARGE

As you know, Babe has been sleeping between Jeffrey and I basically since birth (minus the first month or two where we slept on the couch, me in the upright position, her cradled at my chest), and we have all enjoyed co-sleeping more than I ever thought possible. Two days ago, I tried fruitlessly for 3 hours to rock that child to sleep. It just was not happening, even though she was rubbing her eyes and yawning. After three hours of struggle, I honestly could not take it anymore. I had to get away from her. I deposited my child in her crib, shut the door and sat down in the hallway. I didn't know what I was waiting for, screams of anguish that would pull at my heart strings and make me calm down I suppose. I heard Mads turn on the little music player in her crib, rustle around and whimper once or twice, and I waited. I waited for what felt like an eternity, what was taking that child so long to cry? I was starting to get worried, maybe she suffocated under a blanket, maybe she nose-dived out of the crib and broke her neck, maybe she had been abducted by a very quiet child-snatcher. When I opened the door and peeked in the room, what I saw was somehow worse.

She was sleeping. She was sleeping in her crib, alone in the dark, and she looked so incredibly peaceful. My big girl was ready for her own bed, and she was trying to tell me that for three whole hours. I moved the baby monitor into her room, and snuggled up on the couch with the receiving end clutched to my chest. She would wake up soon, and she would be scared, lonely and starved for attention from Mommy.

She woke up at 7am, bright eyed and giggly. She slept from 7pm to 7am in her crib last night. I put her in her bed today a noon, kissed her cheek and told her it was nap time. I shut the door behind me and grabbed the baby monitor. I heard her music begin to play, and nothing else. Three minutes later:

I have to admit, I'm absolutely devastated. I know I'm being overdramatic, but I'm seriously the saddest person in the whole world right now. I knew she wouldn't sleep with us forever, I just didn't know she would be ready to leave before I was ready. I wasn't ready. She's growing up so fast, becoming this independent little person who doesn't need me as much anymore, and it totally breaks my heart. I've been weepy since noon.

I am so insanely proud of her though.

I will be a total wreck when she goes to college. A train wreck.

The Day After Strawberry Vomit

Because pink carpet isn't bad enough.

So yesterday, I had to work at 5. After work, around 10pm, I stopped at Sheetz to fill my little green machine's gas tank. I pulled up to pump number three, prepayed with some tip money, and hopped back in the car. Turn key. Beep. Nothing else. It was lightning out so of course my first thought was that my car had been struck while I prepayed. I mean, that happens all the time, right? Jeffrey wakes the baby up, drives the whole way to Sheetz (both of them in their jammies) and I hang out in front of pump three for about 45 minutes. Jeffrey's here, and we push the Escort into a parking space. In the rain. Some random good Samaritan walks up, says he's been a mechanic for two days (I shit you not) and would like to evaluate my dead car. Good Samaritan turns the key and says "dead battery." That's what happens when your car gets struck by lightning! DUH! Back inside Sheetz, I ask the biggest, grungiest looking guy there if he has some jumper cables, and for once my knack for stereotypes doesn't fail me. Of course he has jumper cables! But wait, I look familiar to him, didn't I work with him at Toftrees about four years ago? I did work at Toftrees four years ago. "You were a bitch." Why thank you, what's your name again? I still don't know, nor do I care. So we jump the car, give big guy asshole/big guy nice guy his cables back, and I drive the Ford five feet before it dies again. Super. But wait! There's a hippy pounding on my window! He wants to not only help, but dictate every move Jeffrey and I make. We're obviously two morons who have never pushed a car before, and without this guy screaming instructions in my face, I couldn't possibly manage to turn the steering wheel. Hippy and Jeffrey push the car to a side parking spot while I cower in the driver's seat. We're wet, and we've given up. I go back inside Sheetz to ask the jumper cable guy if he would be so kind as to avoid towing my car until morning. Well sure, that's fine with him, but first he wants to consult his manager. What a nice guy he turned out to be. Out comes Ms. Manager, "Oh. It's you." Indeed, it is me. I cannot for the life of me remember this chicks name, but I do remember her having pink hair in high school (see the theme? Pink). The look she gave me could only come from someone whom I had previously burned, but I honestly don't remember her. "We'll tow your car tomorrow," as she exits stage left into the office. I decide that I don't like that girl. As we're leaving, three non-English speaking persons in a van ask me how to get to the airport ("Airport? Airport?"). I gave the best directions that I could, and received a confused lip curl in return. Screw it, it's 11:30pm and my kid is sleeping in the car, so why don't we just drive past the airport, and yall can follow us ("You...[pointing] Me...[pointing] Follow...[waving] Me. You follow. Me."). I felt like I needed to do a good deed for the day to even out all the good will that had been shown to me in the past two hours. It totally gave me the warm and fuzzies, along with a huge case of fucking annoyed after I realized they only drive 15 miles per hour in that van. Stupendous.

Today. Jeffrey and I hurry to Sheetz, praying that pink-haired-chick turned bitchy-blonde didn't mean "tomorrow" as in 3am. The Escort was still there, and we pop the hood to remove the battery. Did you bring a wrench? I didn't bring a wrench. Sheetz does not sell a wrench. They do however sell dirty looks and stupid grudges, in case you're ever in the market for one of those. To Walmart, where we buy a two dollar wrench, back to Sheetz, back to Walmart for a sixty-eight dollar battery, and five, fifty cent rides in the kiddy arcade. I'm home. So is the Escort. Jeffrey suffered a cheap-wrench related injury, and I'm sure it will become infected by tomorrow. It's pink, and you know what pink means in my life.

Oh wait, isn't it wordless Wednesday?

Strawberry Vomit

So I slept on the couch last night because I had a drink or five ($2 Red Bull and vodkas, I have no self control) at Indigo, and I didn't want to roll over on Babe. Well Jeffrey, the super-de-dooper smart guy that he is, didn't wake me up before he left for work. He also neglected to put the gate back up to the cat's room and didn't lock the dishwasher. So by the time Babe finally got around to waking up Mommy this morning, she had already had a blast with the kitty litter and was walking around with a pizza cutter. Chewing on it. So anyways, I go grocery shopping with Babe and when I get back, I have at least twelve bags on one arm, Babe and a jug of milk in the other arm, and my keys dangling from my fingers. Whoa, run on sentence. I struggle the key into the door and the fucking thing snaps off. So cool, I can't get in my apartment. I drop all the groceries on my door mat and head back down those ridiculous stairs to hunt for the maintenance guy. I have a new key that I'm not allowed to keep (?) and I'm finally in my apartment. Woot! I put the groceries away and plop Babe in the highchair with a grilled cheese, a handful of blueberries and five massive strawberries. Not that it really matters but, she didn't eat her grilled cheese again. I don't know what's wrong with that girl. So yeah, Babe is done and I hose her down, throw her tray on the counter and walk to the bathroom for a nice pee. Mads didn't follow me, so I should have known something awful was about to happen. Strawberry vomit. Five piles of it on the carpet, a splash on the balcony door, a smear on the wall, blueberry chunks on the outlet cover, strawberry on her pony and Mr. Bear. It smells in here, and my carpet is pink.

Kill me.

Hot Dam!

Today, my beautiful little family spent the day at the dam. It was a hot damn day for the dam, hence my snappy title. Babe was so exhausted from all the fun and sun, she conked out as soon as she hit the car seat, slept through the jostle up the stairs, and is still snoozing with a ton of sand in her butt crack as I type this. Although I should be cleaning the sand out of my own butt crack, I've decided to take this golden opportunity to post three hundred pictures of my child in the sun. So without any further bull, here's our day! :)

And because every blog post should have a video:

It was a pretty good dam day.

This is the way we brush our teeth

Brush our teeth, brush our teeth.

This is the way we brush our teeth, early in the mornin'!

Dear Blog

Oh how I've neglected you, tossed you aside in favor of sunshine and fun, kites that I can't fly and little turtle sand boxes. I've thought of you frequently, mostly at night when I'm too tired from swimming or swinging or sliding to actually devote any time to you. It makes me sad when I click on the little "view blog" link and find posts from weeks ago, so many fun days and pictures that I've skipped. Dear Blog, I wish I could tell you that I'll be back to my three post a day minimum, but that's simply not true. Apparently I'm a winter writer. Who knew?

My 14 month old is still wearing 6 month clothing, she can point to my nose, tongue and feet on demand, she has had skim milk (from a cow) on her cheerios. She has skinned her first knee, and then her second, and after the first healed she skinned a third. She baby paddles in the pool, can eat a whole quart of blueberries if you let her, and has four beautiful molars. Even slathered in a massive amount of sunblock she has managed to get a little baby tan, she loves wild berries and walking by herself at all times. Babe must participate in all showers throughout the day, throw all garbage in the trash can by herself, sort all socks and bibs and dish rags, and has finally mastered the triangle in her shape-sorter. She understands everything I say, and I've been trying very hard to clean up my potty-mouth before it's too late (her next word will either be twat or waffle, I'm sorry). She helps pick up her toys, loves to read at least six books a day, dumps water on my head to wake me up and plays patty-cake like a pro.

We're having a fabulous summer. Every day holds a new adventure, every dog is called a cat first, every party leaves Babe exhausted and happy. Fire works were super fab, water parks are super fun and beachy days are just plain super. Every Saturday from now until September is already accounted for, family reunions and work picnics and bbq's. We'll be in Florida from August 7th to the 19th, then a long camping weekend as soon as we return. I'm going to try to keep up with my blog, I really do want Babe's first summer of fun to be documented, but I'll settle for a mish-mash picture post on September 3rd if I have to.

Happy Summer.