Busy Little Buggy

Look how big and smart and sassy my Bugsteroni is these days:

She will be 8 months old next week and she already crawls all over the place (has since 5.5 months), pulls up on EVERYTHING (started that at 6.5 months), and cruises along all of the furniture.  These skills are coming in very handy in her efforts to bother Hoot, get into all of Hoot's stuff, open drawers in the bathroom and the kitchen, pick keys off of the keyboard of my laptop, and generally helping herself to lots and lots of trouble.

She also has a temper like no other - and HATES being told "no".  She likes to pinch me while she is nursing, and when I say, "NO.  NO PINCHING." she has a total meltdown and tries to pinch me more.  Stubborn.  Just like Daddy.  ;-)

Her favorite foods are strawberries, cheerios, scrambled eggs, graham crackers, hummus sandwiches, yogurt, and toast - but that is all a distant second to the boob.  This kid LOVES the boob. LOL  (And don't even think about suggesting that she eats baby food.  That crap  is for BABIES, after all. LOL)

Her favorite toys are mostly ones that belong  to Hoot, but she likes her ABC train and her little stuffed Llama Llama Red Pajama, too.  She is a little thinker, and any toy you give her, she studies and looks at and inspects down to the very last detail.

Her favorite thing on Earth? Her sister, of course.  She idolizes Hayden.  She watches everything that her sis is doing like a little hawk, taking notes, wishing for the day that she is old enough to do the same things.  One of her biggest sources of frustration?  Her sister, of course!  Hayden doesn't like to share her My Little Pony toys with Bug, Hayden can run and Bug can't, Hayden eats things like apples and Bug can't.  She screams at the top of her lungs.  Being the baby sister is HARD. LOL

<3 this baby (who is clearly not going to stay a baby for long) to bits!!  :-)

"I hope someday you have a daughter just like you...""

My mother used to say this to me all the time.

Well, I think she may have gotten her wish.  Maybe times two.  It is still to soon to say about Carly, but one thing we know for sure:

                                               My oldest is my little Mini-Me. 

Bossy. Chatty.  Sensitive.  Stubborn. 

Doesn't miss or forget a thing.  Like seriously - the hearing of a wild dog and the memory of an elephant.

Loves Sesame Street, Muppets, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, making a good crafty mess, and chocolate.

And those big blue eyes??  The ones she uses to work Daddy? 

                                                                      Yeah, those are mine, too.

We have a quilt that my mom made for me on my second birthday, 28 years ago.  It has Strawberry Shortcake on it - the original SS, not the cute trendy one we watch daily on The Hub channel. Hayden has recently decided that she likes that quilt. A lot.  She hauls it all over the place.

This morning Hayden and Carly were playing around with the blanket.  All was going well until Hayden noticed some spit-up in her sister's mouth.

Well, Hoot has this issue - which, incidentally, she also inherited from yours truly.  We are sympathetic pukers.  We see puke and we join in.  We cannot help ourselves.  After many years of life as a sympathetic puker, I have learned to control it. 

 It usually takes a full-on barf to make me gag. 

Or the sound  of someone barfing.

Or a super scary diaper. 

                                                                                      Or dog poop.

             

(Okay, maybe I am in the wrong profession. LOL)

But my poor little Mini-Me - she gags at the smallest sign of anything.  Spit-up, slobber, snot, a tiny dab of poop in a diaper.  This is an issue when you have a pukey, slobbery, snotty, pooping little baby sister around. 

Usually, she just gags.

But this morning, the sight of that spit-up in her sister's mouth was too much to bear.  She saw that spit up and she gagged and barfed. (Yes, this is where I started to gag, too. LOL We are a mess.) It was just a little bit, but to her horror, she barfed on the coveted Strawberry blanket. 

I assured her (while gagging and thanking God that it all landed on the blanket and not on her or her sister or the carpet or whatever) that it surely wasn't the first time that the Strawberry blanket had been puked on and we would just wash it. 

So I stuck it in the washer.  

Which lead to another one of my traits surfacing -

she cried because her blanket was in the wash. 

I was a hardcore blanket baby myself, and I have vivid memories of standing by the washing machine/dryer, like a total sad sack waiting for my beloved blanket "Sam" to be clean.

            Just like this:

She is not happy with me.  Strawberry with be clean in no time, but when you are two, it feels like forever.

I know this to be true, Hayden, because I have been where you are.  I too am a gagging mess who has clung to the side of a washing machine waiting forever because my mean old mom cared more that my blanket was clean than I did. 

And, you know what, little Owlet? 

 I hope that someday,

 

you are lucky like me

 

and you have a daughter

                                                                                       just like you. :-)

The Mom Games

My cousin Erin has a little boy who is exactly 11 weeks older than Bugster.  She is a teacher, but when the school year is over, she is starting a new chapter in her life - she is joining the ranks of the Stay-at-Home-Moms.

She is a little nervous about this new beginning.  We have had many conversations about "learning to be a SAHM" - Erin is a woman who loves structure and she is worried that she will not know what to do when she heads into the unknown. 

This week is her spring break, and it is like a trial run for her.  We have been texting back and forth today about different things and a little bit ago, we had this conversation.



Erin:  I'm playing a game right now I thought you might appreciate. Is this what SAHMs do? It's called "WTF is In These Frozen Containers?"  I am trying to clean out the freezer and I am having a hell of a time figuring out what are in these! Argh!

Me: Ugh.  That is a game that I haven't played in a while but probably should.  It is usually followed by a game of "Why the Hell Did I Save This In the First Place?"

Erin: Yes, that happened a few times during that game.


This got me thinking of some other "games" stay-at-home-moms play.

Here is a few I came up with:

"Name That Stain" This is pretty self-explanatory, really.  But whether it is something weird on the carpet, on a onesie, or on my comforter, I play this one every single day.

"Who the Eff Did THIS?!"  This is a game I play a lot too - like when I walk into the bathroom and see that someone has unrolled the entire roll of toilet paper. Was it Hoot? Bug? Tilly?  Who knows.  Other times, the answer is glaringly obvious, such as, "Who the eff smeared baby lotion all over the windows in the dining room?" (Hayden) or "Who the eff crapped in the entryway?" (usually Tilly) or "Who the eff emptied a bowl of popcorn all over the living room carpet?!" (Hayden again) or "Who the eff shredded a magazine all over the place?" (this one has a Bonus Round where you check the mouths of the puppy and the baby to determine which one did it. LOL)

"Who's Poop is This?"  This game is similar to the one above, but it specifically involves finding poop. LOL

"Pennies to Payday"  The object of this game is figuring out how to feed a family of four and diaper the one that isn't potty trained and whatever else pops up (like a desperate need for a bottle of wine at the end of an especially long day) during the last few days before we get paid - with something like $12.50 in your bank account.  :-/

"Supermarket Sweep: Moms Edition"  Thirty minutes to nap time - will she be able to run into the store, get everything she needs, spend less than the allotted $12.50 mentioned above, and not kill her cart full of kids - ALL BEFORE THE YOU-KNOW-WHAT HITS THE FAN??  Stay tuned!

"What's That Smell?" I bet you can figure this one out all on your own.

"Whisper in a War Zone" In this game, everyone around you makes as much noise as they can while you try to listen to something important.  On the phone? Something you want to see on TV?  Try to decipher what is being said - while the baby cries, the toddler runs around screaming or has a tantrum, the dogs bark, your husband tries to tell you about his day or ask you ten thousand questions, and the house basically falls in around you.  All calm returns as soon as you hang up the phone or the thing you wanted to see on TV is over.

"Family Feud: The Baby and Toddler Edition"  Unlike the traditional Family Feud, this one is a game of endurance.  Basically, you get in the car with one or more crying children and your spouse, usually for a long distance trip.  As the children scream, your sanity begins to waver.  Knowing you cannot be angry with a small child for crying in the car, you will soon be angry at your spouse.  Soon, you will feel like either murdering one of the other passengers in the car or hurling your own body from the door of the moving vehicle.  If everyone arrives at the destination alive AND you are still married, you win.  (This happened to us once in a bad way when Hayden was about 4 months old.  In Hawaii.  It was terrible.  We still look back at that trip and shudder.  Survey Says?  This game is not for sissies.)



These are just a few of the things that keep me "entertained" daily.  I am sure that I missed some.  And I am sure as kids get older, the games change.  Enlighten me - what are someof your favorite Mom Games??

Why is it that

just when I think that I might get a few good shots

with two smiling kids

and the world's cutest little dog

all looking at the camera and smiling,

does someone get some crazy idea

to ruin it with a monkey face??

LOL!!!!!!

i love these girls to bits.

just in case you didn't know.

;-)