One week out…

To hold you over…a Huckleberry claps!

 

By this time next week I will be relaxing and (hopefully) basking in the HUGE success that was DC’s very first Listen To Your Mother show. I’m directing. I’m overwhelmed and freaking out and just…GAH!

But in a good way. Does that make sense?

Last night I met with one of my favorite people, Sue, and I suddenly morphed back into pre-baby acting coach ME. I broke down her exquisite piece with her section by section and it felt good. So good. Thankfully Sue was really open to it. I can’t wait to watch her take to the stage and soar.

I haven’t been on stage since before I got pregnant with The Boss. So, five years. Five years. I am terrified and thrilled about it.

This weekend I just stopped. Overwhelmed to the point of immobility, and it was a re-run of the Big Bang Theory that provided the giddyup in my gate. Sheldon employing the Shower Principle. Do a menial task and allow the rest of your brain to problem solve. With not a second to spare, my brain in a tangled mess of panic and problem solving, I decided to make an acid eaten mirror. Because, obviously. Despite the two hours not spent on Listen to Your Mother work, I felt better. Less panicked. Then in between rehearsals I painted the bathroom, naturally. I should panic more often…I get shite done! And yes, as soon as I can I’ll post pictures. I’m now eying every mirror in the house thinking “You want to be eaten by acid don’t you?”  Some of them do, I’m telling you, some of them do.

Just like any show some things haven’t gone according to plan…but much like a wedding -if we are married at the end of the day it’s a success- if at the end of Listen To Your Mother these brave women’s stories have been heard, it’s a success.Extra success if we get to write a big check to Why Mommy’s charity…I think we will!

It’s not to late to get tickets, but they are going fast!

Also, if anyone knows a DC Videographer who wants to be amazing and worshiped let me know!

Time marches on…

We are feeding ourselves over here. It’s half awesome, half total disaster.

Don’t you dare clear that plate before he is ready.

Baby Brother will cut you if you take away his crushed Kix covered banana slices. I’ve given up on bibs and have begun employing a diaper only dress code.

And this guy? Well he has taken to eat/napping. On the floor. Cheerios are his new favorite, perhaps it has something to do with Baby Brother chowing down on them.

Shhhhh. Don’t wake him.

More I wants…but this time I GET!

There was a time, back in the day, when I fancied myself a scrapbooker. That is to say I went crazy and bought all sorts of pretty paper and books and the stickers…Oh! The stickers. But, alas, no scrapbooker am I. Every time I passed that aisle at the craft store I could feel Martha Stewart’s disdain towards my hoarding of unused scrapbooking supplies. It was palpable, people. So I did the only thing I could possibly do,  I donated them. I mean, really who was I kidding? Then I had kids and the desire to create books that showcased the awesomeness of their awesomeness was strong, but the time (and certainly the skill) was lacking.

I count you people who scrapbook while parenting in the same category as those who parent while doing those crazy manicures on Pinterest. That category is called when do you sleep? I admire you all, I do but I just don’t have it in me. Then the whole professional printed picture book craze began and I thought oh yes! I want one of those! Forget scrapbooks and old school photo albums! Now THAT is more my style, but really? I don’t have the time to even learn how to do that, and I harbor a not so secret fear that the book I design will look¸ well, crappy. But those books? Especially the big ones, they are the wave of the future people, and I want in on that. Because all I know is I am desperate for my kids to go to bed, then they do, and then I look at pictures of them and miss them.

Because motherhood is wacky y’all.

Snapfish to the rescue! Snapfish gave me the opportunity to try out their Mother’s Day photo book templates  and I jumped at the chance because as I said, I love to look at pictures of my kids.  I want to be altruistic, I want to send this book to my mother or give it to my mother in law, but I am so.very.selfish. and therefore I confess I am keeping it for me. FOR ME I SAY!

Snapfish has some really cool layouts including new Mother’s day templates (I chose Letterpress for Mom) which are clean, easy to use, and all around pretty. There is a simple drag and drop design tool, and you can import your pictures straight from Facebook or Flickr which rocks in case you are like me and constantly find yourself going ‘now where did I store that dang thing?”  Plus the best thing ever – you can save and come back to the project later- which was awesome for me as I am frequently dropping whatever I am doing to rescue Huckleberry from a Boss headlock or racing someone to the potty. It’s a glamorous life, I tell ya! I spent most of the weekend scouring through all our old pictures and wishing I they gave out really good cameras at the hospital when you birth a baby because dude, some of these pictures of Baby Boss are shoddy, luckily I can easily make a collage page of all the super cute but unable to be blown up without looking all pac-man pixilated baby Boss pictures. Win!

I can’t wait to get my book. I am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival and I can guarantee you two things. 1. It looks awesome and 2. I will be ordering two more just like it for the grandmothers because it’s the perfect Mother’s Day present for them.

If you are looking for a great Mother’s Day present for your mom (or yourself!) or really just want a picture book check out Snapfish.com, so easy to use and the prices are great. I predict I will be starting a yearly book and working on it here and there…since you can save the project!  when it arrives)

p.s. Mom? I know you read the blog every day so…..HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

 

***This post is sponsored by Snapfish as part of their support of the LISTEN TO YOUR

MOTHER SHOW 2012 series of Mother’s Day performances. I am directing

the DC show on May 6^th (Get your tickets NOW! they are going fast! )

my iphone died and then I fell in love with Kate Spade – Sunday Obsessions.

My iPhone met an anti-climactic end on Thursday. It simply closed it’s eyes and went to sleep, never to wake again. I suppose that’s how we all want to go, how we want our beloveds to go, peacefully and in the arms of someone who loves them…someone begging them not to leave and telling them they are so, so loved and they don’t know how to live without them.

So it was with me and my iPhone.

To say I felt as though I was missing a limb would be an understatement. I wasn’t sure how to function, and I am not just talking constant Twitter interactions or emails…but what if something happened to my kids while I was away from them at Meet a Mom Live on Thursday night? Not to mention that everyone was making awesome glass art at ahem, Awesome Art and I couldn’t twitpic!

You know that vexes me greatly.

Saturday was jam packed and so it was not until Sunday that I got to go meet the Genius who was facillitating the adoption of my new baby! I decided to switch it up this time and got a white 4s and we are in love. You can frequently find us just gazing at one another as I take in her perfection.

And that brings me to my new obsession. Kate Spade. There was nary a iphone case that I liked at the Apple iPhone Adoption Agency, I liked the Kate Spade ones they had but I need a hard case. A quick search on the nearest 15 inch Mac Book Pro (Dear God that is a gorgeous, gorgeous computer!) and I fell  in love with a case so lovely it called out to me. Luckily for me it was at Nordstrom and luckily for me Nordstrom was three stores down.

It was the last one, hidden behind all the other polka dotted Kate Spade cases. As I swaddled my new iPhone baby in her beautiful new case, suddenly all was right in my social media world.

{Nordstrom}

It was then that I realized perhaps I was late to the Kate Spade game, and so when I got home I searched…and fell in love. Green is my favorite color and the Kate Spade green is the world’s most beautiful green second only to the true green of the happy leaves that surround pink peonies.

Sigh.

Now, to convince Zach that we need to re-do the bedroom. Again. I need this. It makes me happy.

{Bed Bath & Beyond}

At the very least I must posses this Good Night/ Good Morning pillow. How sweet is this?

(Also? I need this shower curtain. Kate Spade? Marry me!)

Pink, navy and orange? Sign me up. I swoon.

 

Let’s not discuss the handbags. THE HANDBAGS! They are on my maybe we will get a million dollars before mother’s day and I can get one along with a Max & Chloe monogram necklace and a laptop list.

Clearly I have the I wants.

This week on The Today Show…

{my wedding day, the healthiest I have ever been}

If you don’t follow me on twitter then perhaps you don’t know that I am obsessed with the Today Show. OBSESSED, I say. It is non-negotiable viewing in the morning. On Monday I was late for a deadline and I desperately said to The Boss “Would you like one of your shows on the TV?”  He casually tossed back over his shoulder “Nah Mommy, I’m cool with the Today Show.”

And then I collected the Pulitzer in Parenting.

But most mornings I spoon organic smushed fruit down Huckleberry’s desperately morning hungry gullet and smile at The Boss as he races past me in one of his morning concert routines.  As I feed the eagerly eating baby and beg the faster than light three year old to eat anything at all, I kick it with Matt, Ann, and Al. Also Savannah and dear God she’s so gorgeous it should be illegal Natalie Morales.  Tweeting all the while. Because,  you know, every silly Today Show thought I have must be shared with the world!

But some times…. 140 characters cannot contain my thoughts. Such it is with this K.E. Diet. Because, seriously? What the fekk? (those last two sentences are responsible for the death of many English teachers, my apologies.) If you are so desperate to get skinny for your wedding that you get a feeding tube? You have an issue and that issue is not the June Bride’s Magazine. It is a mental issue.

This is not okay, and I don’t care what the doctor says….it’s just NOT. Feeding tubes are not a diet choice, they are a gift to those who need it and something you hope to get off of as fast as possible.

It’s true, this hits close to home. As ‘recovered’ eating disorder survivor I am of course biased. There are good doctors and bad doctors, and while I am not calling the doctor who invented this a bad doctor, he is certainly irresponsible to sell this as a diet. I was this close to a feeding tube. I made deal after deal after deal with doctor after doctor after doctor to avoid it, as it is a way to get patients to gain weight.

Women are willing to have a tube slid through their sinus cavity and down their throat into their stomach to send them barely enough nutrition to exist, and that? Is so very, very messed up. I am willing to bet that these women who opt for this are at the very least susceptible to the eating disordered mindset at the very least.

Doctors and nurses aren’t infallible. While I was being assessed for my intake in to the treatment center for my eating disorder the resident said to me “You are so thin! You’ll have to tell me your secret.” My secret was that I was killing myself to be thin, and that’s why they were locking me up. I was 82 pounds and thought I was fat but even I knew she was messed up for not realizing that I was sick. Every rib was visible. My hipbones jutted out. My feet hurt, standing for long periods of time was impossible, I had no fat pads on my feet. It was bone-skin-floor and it hurt.

If I had been offered a calorie restricted option…barely 800 calories a day, I might have taken it, gained just enough weight to get them off my back and then ripped it out.

A feeding tube is a way to up calories and nourish a body that cannot receive nourishment any other way.

It is not a way to lose weight.

If you think it is, you are wrong. If your doctor offers it as an option, find another doctor. And above all else, know that you don’t have to be 100 pounds to be a beautiful bride.

Slow down, you move too fast!~

We’ve got to make this baby moment last.

You guys? Huck is omgomgomgomgomg TEN MONTHS OLD! We are three weeks away from ELEVEN months and seven weeks away from ONE YEAR OLD (God willing, fingers crossed- hello postpartum anxiety) and I ask you, how….how in the name of Katniss did this HAPPEN?

He was just born. I’m having an issue with this. All of a sudden it’s as if his babyhood is slipping through my fingers like the softest sweetest sand. And you know those last few grains slip away faster than the first. He is babbling away, eats bananas all by himself, kicking his feet happily and he munches away.

You can always tell how Huckie feels by his feet. Both legs kicked straight out in unison means a very mad Huckleberry. This usually occurs when you take a paper towel away from him. Baby loves him some paper towels. Feetsies kicking out alternating from left to right means a happy Huckleberry. This occurs much more often as he is by and large the happiest baby in land. When you smile at him, he kicks. Pick him up? Kicks. Sing to him, kick combo happy baby scream.

Tell me you don’t love the happy baby scream. You there in the corner? LIAR. You love it.

I am happy with all his progress, I want him to grow and be happy and kick his happy feet…but man it’s going so damn fast.

 

I really need to do laundry more often…

Because look what I found in the basket.

Thank goodness I read the directions: hand wash warm with Burt’s Bees then towel dry and kiss till giggles.

done and done!

In which my mother in law is groovier than me.

This past Saturday we gathered, friends and family, for my mother in law’s Seder. I love her Seders. First of all, who doesn’t love a religious ceremony where you lean to the left and drink? I mean, really. But mostly I love it because as we drink more and more wine we get sillier and sillier, and bless my mother in law’s heart, she laughs along with us. All the while I am cracking jokes and laughing till my eyes water, I am thinking how much groovier than me she is, because if this was my Easter dinner I would be freaking out at the giggling. I’d be Jesus died you guys! But she’s like whahoo! we got out of Egypt AND we remembered to bring the coffee! YAY!

{seriously yay. thanks for the coffee}

But she laughs hardest of all. Which is good because her son did a mighty fine rap of one part of the ceremony and we added several plagues to the ones that were unleashed upon the Egyptians such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Dance Moms, and Rick Santorum.

But the highlight of the night was, unsurprisingly, The Boss. Sitting at the dinner table he suddenly slammed a fist on the table.

“dammit!” slam again. “DAMMIT!” cried he.

“oh no, that is not a word we use” said I “especially not at the dinner table”

He paused, looking at all of us, moving only his eyes. Waited a good three seconds then:

“Awk-ward.”

Timing. The kid has it.

I wondered and wondered where he got that from. It was so specific. Slam. Dammit. SLAM. DAMMIT. And then after dinner my husband showed my SIL the funniest news bloopers, and there it was. Some apparently really famous ex-football player who is not Howie Long but I can’t remember anyone’s name other than Howie Long on some sports show. Slam! Dammit! SLAM!  DAMMIT!

I guess we are just lucky Boss didn’t say “keep f***ing that chicken.”

And to top it all off…THE CUTE.

Last year the news reported that a mama duck had brought her ducklings to hatch at National Geographic. As soon as TOTT and my Father in Law arrived home I pounced on them there are ducklings at Nat Geo? Where are the pictures? I want to see them!

On Monday as we walked back to Daddy’s office from the White House we could see that they had roped off the reflecting pool in the courtyard in the few hours we had been gone.

Oh! Zach said, the ducks must be back! And they were. Mama is one smart duck and she knows everything stops at National Geographic for her and her babies! Thirteen in all this year, three born on Sunday and ten born just that day. And Oh! How sweet they are.

Nat Geo has Plan of Action for when Mama returns with her babies and she is well cared for and protected. If you ever doubt the hearts of men, glimpse everyone in action about these ducklings and mama. Yesterday they had an escort as they left the NG grounds, making their way down 16th all the way down to the White House. Now we will all wait, patiently, hoping that she will bring her next batch of babies to National Geographic.
Swoony.

Good job, mama, you couldn’t have picked a better place in D.C. to hang with your babies. It’s like you knew…

Easter Egg Roll at The White House!

When The Boss was in utero we called him POTUS. Because, obviously. As he shows us his personality I believe the guys at the gym (who gave him his nickname and who I haven’t seen in ages because gym? what’s a gym?) were right on the money naming him Boss. He is both the boss in personality and takes after the BOSS boss. Springsteen- guitar wise that is.

We were lucky enough to get to go to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll and I was pretty sure he was going to go all Rock n Roll for the event. But I was quickly informed that “You don’t spike your hair to go to a playdate at the President’s house, Mommy!”

And then I died of cute.

In the spirit of Easter I pulled myself together and we combed his hair all sweet. But he is 3 and a half so you know that hair was a mess by the time we got there. No matter. Special thanks to Billy Joe Armstrong for making ties punk rock because not only did Boss happily put one on to go to the White House, he wore one to preschool today. (I died again)

The line to get in was INSANE but everything was as organized and moved as quickly as it could when you have 14,000 kids there and 35,000 people. Wow. The short story? We had a blast! I always wanted to go, it was so fun to be a part of a classic American tradition and I confess…I am a total sap, which you knew, when you entered the lawn you walked through a marching band which lined the walkway playing celebration, and born in the USA, and living in America and then they stopped and called out, as only a marching band can do: WELCOME TO THE WHITE HOUSE.

And then I cried. But just a little because there was fun to be had people…FUN!

First stop of course, was the egg roll! Despite an egg malfunction (that’s what happens when you step on said egg) a grand time was had!


Never fear! Daddy came to the rescue!

But then…then we saw her.

Smurfette. Oh. My GAWD. He was nervous. Not shy, not excited, nervous. It was so precious…I sometimes forget just how little he is. He is so verbal and loves things like, you know, GREEN DAY, but then he was so nervous and seemed so small waiting to meet his love, his “Snurfie”.

So I told him to give her a hug. He was so shy!

But just like a good boy he came running back to Mommy (who will always love him more than any other woman ever will, amiright fellow moms of boys?) calling out “I did it!”

We saw the bees, the garden and played spot the ginormous secret service agent hiding in the greenery. WHOA are those guys big. Those are the guys for the job, but they did an AMAZING job of staying out of the sight of the kids. The atmosphere was one of utter fun and relaxation. We also got to see the girls! THE GIRLS! Oh, they were lovely. They were home from school and brought some buds over to play in the yard. Wouldn’t you? They cheered on the little ones as they did the obstacle course and then did it themselves. It is such a joy to have kids in the White House.

We had a grand idea of getting a picture of the boys together with the White House in the background. You know how family portraits turn out…



Maybe one with Mommy, who is never in any pictures!

It was clearly time to give up and go have some Peanut Butter Pie at Old Ebbit’s. So that’s what we did.
Judging by my sore hips, back, neck and calves I think Michelle Obama would be please with the amount of walking, lifting and exercising I did yesterday, even if she wouldn’t approve of the Peanut Butter Pie.
Also? Am old. Pass the Ben Gay.