FNLO...the royal edition~

• Ahhh yes, I struggle to wake up for work, I struggle to wake up for gym, but give me a royal wedding of a middle class girl marrying her long time prince and I'll be up to watch them Wed in the entirety! Did you watch it? The way they smile at each other, breath taking. They are truly in love. I will admit that as she walked up to him and they smiled at each other, and he leaned over to tell her how really beautiful she looked, oh it hit me and I wept. So sweet!
  


• How do you make mashed potatoes? Stop laughing at me. For real here, one would think that a domestic goddess like myself (again quit laughing!) would be able to boil some potatoes, and mash them with some milk and butter, but I can't! Every time I attempt it, they come out like glue. Please share your potato mashing suggestions with this potato loving momma.

• K has been napping later and later in the day which leads to a later and later bedtime. While I enjoy this extra time I get with her at night, I do not like the insta-meltdown the child has when she realizes she is ready for bed.

• Speaking of bed, whether it is nap time of bed time she has begun trying to delay the process....I need milk, I want to pee pee in the potty (laughable cause she sits there and hums - and this is the only time I can get her to actually sit there for longer than 8 seconds). On maybe a hand full of occasions I have let her come into my bed after her bath to snuggle and watch a bedtime show, recently all 3 of us laid there and watched one. Now every night she wants to "go night night in Mommy Daddy bed". When I don't letter her she has a complete melt down. Poor kid, but I am not getting into that as a habit. My bed is just that, MINE!

• I am heading to NYC on Saturday! Can't wait. I am on a mission to find Bacon Ice Cream while I am there....cause really you can find anything in NYC and Bacon DOES make everything better.

• I have continued on my work out regime this week. Early up and out to the gym. On Tuesday one of the personal trainers (a professional body builder) approached me and offered me a free session to help me with some weight training. I kindly took him up on the offer:) Basically he will watch for me on a morning when he doesn't have a scheduled session and pull me aside to "train" me. I have not weighed myself since last week. I am thinking a monthly weigh in will be my thing. I hate to get discouraged weekly. I say that because my clothes still feel tight in the places I want them to loosen up. It sucks how hard it is to lose weight when you are A) older B) post baby C) a Woman

• I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I did not get the job I really wanted. I am planning to approach my boss and his boss about creating my own job (ballsy no?). They have me taking on a lot of extra stuff over the past several months, which has turned into a full time job. So I am going to suggest that they make it my job....I am also going to request a 2nd day from home.

• Our gas prices are near $4.15 a gallon. Completely ridiculous.

• This week K is very much into being a "rina" and dancing on Mommy and Daddy's bed~

Don't want to cook tonight? Head over to Danifred's place to see what other's are doing for their leftovers!!

Making her momma proud....

This week my sweet little K has been talking up a storm! Full sentences, very legible, and words used in the correct manner. Some of my favorites.....

• Salamander
• Sleep at home in my bed
• Dick
• Crap
• Her name(!)
• Oh no mommy, booboo down there (pointing at my lady parts as I demonstrated peepee on the potty)

Yes very interesting use of language in our home this week. What lessons have I learned from this......don't call T a dick in front of her anymore, stop saying oh crap, and hide my "booboo" when demonstrating peepee on the potty.....

Once again they were wrong....

...and I couldn't have been happier about it! (The weathermen that is!)

Hope your Easter was filled with happiness and joy. Our's was filled with butter braids, unexpected sunshine, lots of exploring, and complete family time~

"You see you pull this rope right here and it turns on the pump....oooh look there is a salamander!"

"Then the water shoots out this tube and down that drain. Oooh look there are osky bugs!" "Oh Daddy, you are so smart. I love you"

Cute Baby Saturday...

Easter weekend here in the North East will consist of Rain, wind and cold temperatures. Since we will miss the only egg hunt i could find that allowed under 3 to participate I had my own! I took K to visit her friend L and we "hid" eggs in the yard. They had so much fun running around saying "I see Egg!" "Look! I got Egg!". Frankly it was the best egg hunt I have ever attended~

Friday Night Leftovers.....Good Friday?

Ahhh gotta love the weekly routine/ritual of leftovers. To get the entire menu visit Sippy Cups are not for Starbucks.

• Speaking of Starbucks, in honor of Earth day 2011 (4/22) if you bring a reusable cup in your coffee OR tea is FREE!!!!! But you must act on 4/22!



• My title references Good Friday. I am not religious nor do I practice any of the traditions/rituals of religion. I get that these are important to people and I don't insert my beliefs or thoughts upon them during these times...I do however participate in the non religious parts of the holidays....easter bunny, santa claus....I wanted to take K to an easter egg hunt but all the ones I found locally you had to be 3 to enter! WTF? So I just stuffed 26 eggs with kisses, m&ms, sidewalk chalk holders, and water squirters and K and her friend L will be having their very own 18mo and 2yr old egg hunt tomorrow afternoon!



• I received a really nice compliment from my senior leader today. It made me feel valued and appreciated. Sometimes you need that.



• I bought K some big girl undies today, hello kitty ones. She is NO WHERE near potty training, but we do read books about it, watch videos on it, talk about it....I am thinking I am going to try to get dressed in front of her more frequently and have her pay attention to my undies. Using that as an opportunity to show her the super cool hello kitty panties and explain that until she uses the potty all the time she can't wear them....



• While I want to potty train her, I also don't mind her in diapers. They are easy and well, she is probably my one and only baby so I hate to see her got older, move onto new stages.



• I managed to get myself up 3 mornings in a row at 5am and hit the gym for a minimum of an hour! I am taking Friday (today when you read this!) off, but intend to return Saturday and then again next week before work.



• As a reward I went out today after work and bought myself 3 new sports bra, don't be all hatin and shit now...



• Just in the past 2 weeks K started something new, when you ask her how old she is, she says "I two! " So flippin cute....I can't fathom why T doesn't want to do this all again......



• My MIL is moving forward with selling her house. I asked her to let me have all her baby toys, and told her that while I did not think we were going to have another child, I was not ready to get rid of the toys yet. She got it, I know........I am still struggling with this almost daily ~sigh~



• My Mom is flying up here in May for a long weekend. She hasn't been here since Xmas. K has change SO MUCH since then. I am glad she could take a few days off to come up. I wish my Dad would come back soon too (hint hint Dad!)



• Yet another really good friend told me today she was pregnant. I am (really I am) so happy for her, yet I find myself so resentful at the same time.



• Next weekend I am going to NYC! I am taking a bus trip with my Sister and her co-workers. They can be a wild bunch. I am preparing myself to ...any of the following A) get drunk B) wind up in jail C) be on the big video screen in times square

Thanks to Danifred for once again hosting all of our left over BS for the week. I hope to have some Egg Hunt photos for you this weekend. Whether your family is celebrating the resurrection of christ or simply the easter bunny coming to visit with loads of sweets and treats, have a very happy, healthy and love filled weekend~much love from Karianne, Terry and Kira~

The life I wish I got to live!

Ok people, here it is a few minutes after 9am and my Husband, my Child and my Feline are all still snuggled all warm in their beds SOUND ASLEEP!

K woke up around 8am, I let her be for a few minutes and then went in to get her. I realized that her changing table cover was in the dryer, so gave her a book and told her I would be right back. When I returned she was laying back down. I got her up changed her diaper and she proceeded to fall back to sleep on the changing table! With a dry diaper, and warm socks placed on her feet, she is back in the crib sleeping soundly.

Me on the other hand...I was up at 5:15 and at the gym by 5:45. Ran 3.25 miles, did some post run stretches and returned home to shower and boil some eggs before beginning my work day. I think I am going to attempt the early morning work outs again. Especially in the summer, nothing is better than getting the work out done early, before the temps reach 90 by 8am. So we will see.

I have a physical scheduled for June 14th. My goal, my aspiration, is to be 12lbs lighter by then. 12 lbs in 2 months, I should not have any issues with that, as long as I stick with the gym and eating right. The last time I weighed myself was around 2 weeks ago and I was down 4lbs this morning, so hopefully it is a trend!

Cute baby Saturday.....

Don't you wish you could curl up in the back seat and fall asleep on the drive home?

Friday Night Leftovers.....

Luckily Danifred's posts are a reminder to me to use up my left overs for the week. I already did a mid week leftovers of sorts, but here are a few more things....

• I have started carrying a note pad and pen with me at all times. It seems like lately I can not remember a damn thing. So I right it down, and then I lose the frigin paper!


• Which brings me to next point, I am losing shit left and right. I lost my wallet last Saturday, only for about 2 hours, and don't worry it was lost in my car, but I looked through the car. I finally gave up looking and came home, asked T to take one last look before I called to cancel my cards, and he literally opened the door and said "is this the wallet you are looking for". Mothafugger


• Called to refill a couple of my scripts yesterday, only to have them say I had to come in for an appointment before they wold refill. So at 7am I was in the Dr.s office today.....for a 6 minute appointment! Seriously, you could not ask me those 4 questions over the phone? No of course not, you wanted my $30 copay.....oh yeah they also told me I need a physical in a month. So again, you could not ask me what you needed to over the phone, fill me a 30 day script and SEE me (and collect my copay) at my physical.


• My cat has seriously stinky breath.


• Can't wait to go out with T tomorrow night! We may skip a fancy dinner out and do wings and beer instead...but it sounds perfect to me.


• I haven't watched soaps in over 4 years, but I heard today that AMC and OLTL are being canceled. That makes me sad. I grew up watching them (and GH). I watched every single day for over 20 years. Canceling these iconic shows for more crappy talk and cooking shows? That just sucks.


• Real housewives NYC started again. I missed the first episode, but loved the drama in episode 2. They are such bitches. God I wish they were my friends. Lol

Is it Friday yet?

Hump day sure has taken it's sweet ass time getting here this week and I feel like I have a bunch of random shit to get out....kind of a mid week leftovers

• I go through these phases at work....where one week my calendar is pretty clear, and then all of a sudden I am slammed with 100lbs of shit to shove into a 5lb bag. This week would be the latter. Not only am I way over my head busy (I worked a 14 hr day yesterday,10 today), but to make it all the better, my boss keeps going on and on about how bored he is. Whawhat!!!! While I really do like my boss a lot, I have also wanted to stab him in the neck with my plastic fork numerous times the past couple weeks. I think that once I hit Friday I should slow down slightly, but in the meantime he'd better shut the F*ck up.

• The weather has been so cold and rainy too. This just makes the days drag longer. I just want to feel warm again.

• T is escorting me to a party on Saturday night. I can't wait! He never goes anywhere with me (he doesn't really do crowds well) and now two weekends in a row we are having dates! Last weekend we went to a girlfriends play and didn't have a chance to go out for diner before hand. Not this weekend though. K is heading to Granny's at nap time and Mommy and Daddy will be enjoying a nice, very grown up, dinner.

• I painted K's toe nails tonight. They are really little! She walked around afterwards saying "mommy, look! My piggies are pink!". So stinkin cute. Now if it would warm up she could wear flip flops!

• Speaking of cute things, one of the new things she does, if you have some thing for her and you let her know, "hey k, mommy got you some new paints" she says "who me? Oh thanks".

• Yo gabba gabba in HD is pretty sweet.

• People simply do not know how to drive in the rain. It makes me so angry, i just want to ride their asses to make them freak out! Nah.

• I feel so fat,yet I am just too tired to go to the gym at 9 when K goes to bed. I am loving her staying up later, but just can't motivate to exercise.

• I recently gave away the majority of K's baby clothes up to 18mos. I cried the whole time I sorted through them. I decided to go ahead and let go. Others can use them and I am so happy to be able to share, it is just sad that she won't wear any of them again. I did keep some of my favorites and am going to have a quilt made of her clothes.

Cute baby Saturday.....

Little K and her boyfriend Z.......she likes older men like her Mom

Friday night leftovers.....

I'm back!!!!! Thanks to Danifred for once again hosting us all......

Just a few things to discuss this week:

It is a damn good thing I fell in love with my kid over the past 2 years cause I'll tell you right now......I would not like her if I met her today. Little shit head.

I started playing words with friends on the ipad....i think i hate it. I am getting my arse kicked in 9 out of 12 games.

Now angry birds on the other hand...i hate it so much i love it!

I called out sick on monday....i wasn't sick

I am drinking and blogging....this could be a problem.

Thanks for the discipline feedback with K. T and I are on the same page, which I know is a plus. We need to hold each other accountable now.

I have tomorrow off (today when you are reading this...so don't worry I wasn't drinking at 8am...) to go tasting food at a couple caterers for my friends wedding...yum I hope they give me wine too!

The weather is FINALLY getting a tad bit warmer here in the North East. It hs seriously been a long winter. I can't wait to go to the beach and sink my toes in the hot sand.

My cat is next to me right now, snoring, and his breath stinks so bad. Good thing I love him.

Do you use diapers? You MUST check out Amazon.com . They have this "subscribe and save" program. I normally pay like $29 for a big box of diapers at wally world, but on S&S I get a bigger box for $28 - 30% = $23 and FREE shipping and automatic delivery. I love amazon. You can get wipes, formula, and all sorts of other kiddo stuff too. You should realy check it out.

Speaking of super cool delivery services. Ever used Alice.com? I am putting in an order tonight For all my normal wally world stuff and will let you know how the price compares.....sometimes I am willing to pay more for convienence.

It must be something I am doing wrong....

K is in a terribly rotten phase. She is just plain defiant and rotten. Se looks at you with this evil eye and laughs a demonic laugh. She is misbehaved at completely the worse times.

Today, being Tuesday, I worked from home. Now I should note that T is here at least 90% of the time if not 100% when I work from home. Every time the phone rang she was on me. Wining, crying, screaming a piercing scream. Always with the "i want i want i want" and of course I am trying to conduct business so I give her what she wants. I found myself snapping at her (and T) on more than one occasion today.

Tonight I took her to go out for dinner with my friend I mentioned a few posts ago, that is due to have a baby this month, and she was so terribly rotten in the restaurant. She was kicking, she was screaming that piercing scream, she was yelling "go bye bye in car!" over and over again. I finally had my food wrapped up and left.

I was so embarressed by her behavior. I was embarrassed that I was unable to "control" her. I was one of "those" parents with one of "those" kids. My friend is in for a wake up call. You could see on her face that she was mortified by the situation and was having the internal conversation of "I will never let my child behave that way", you know..the one we have all had when our friends (or strangers) kids behaved like that. Except this time I was on the other side of it.

How do you handle this situation? You can't spank children in public without being thrown into shackles and locked away for years. You can't reason with a 2 year old. I can't continue to pack up my food and leave a dinner out with friends, because at this rate I won't have friends that want to have dinner with me.

The ABC's of bikes, dolls, pools and IPADs

Because I have not updated on her in a while, this post is dedicated completely to K.

• Her language is getting better every day. She adds new words, phrases, and sounds to her library on a regular basis. She often surprises us with comes out of that little brain!


• She can say and identify all her letters, she can identify at least 6 shapes and can name a few, she knows she is two, she can count to 10 (with us assisting her). She knows tons of animals and sounds.


• She still does not say her own name though. If you ask her what her name is, she says "Kitty Cat".


• If you did not spend every day with her, you'd likely have no idea what she is trying to say to you. Heck even my MIL, who sees her a couple times a week, isn't always sure what she is saying or asking for. But T and I are pretty good at deciphering her language.


• She is really into pretend play. Playing with her dolls and doll house as well as her teapot. She very much enjoys a tea party with cakes and "rosey tea".


• Her latest obsessions: The Wiggles (godhelpmethisshowishorrible), the IPAD, bubbles, the crawl tube that goes to her tent, the IPAD and the Wiggles.


• She is still napping once a day, and it is (don't hate me) generally 3+ hours straight. Since DST she has been staying up a bit later (@8-8:30) as well as sleeping later (till at lease 8:30!). On weekends she (and I) have been sleeping in until around 9!


• K has entered the defiant, testing phase of her toddlerhood. She knows she should not do something, such as color on the table, and will hold the crayon on the table and look at you until you look back, and then she starts to color on the table! Such a shit. I have put her in a "time out" on a spare chair in the dining room twice. Not enough times yet for it to have any meaning for her.


• I had to provide T with some "constructive criticism" last week about his discipline technique. He would tell her..."stop doing that or I am going to throw it in the garbage" "clean up your toys or I will throw them away". I explained that we are not throwing anything away, giving it away, destroying, etc and she will figure that out and his "threats" will be empty and mean nothing to her. He took the feedback well :)


• I have been taking K swimming on Sundays at an indoor pool a couple towns over. She is now capable of swimming with her life jacket on or her swimmies! The last time we went (2 weeks ago) she spent almost the whole hour swimming with out me holding onto her. I can't wait until summer. I hope to be able to take some time off for beach and pool outings.


• She is showing no interest in potty training. She goes in her diaper and will tell you when she is ready to be changed or if you ask her if she needs to be will say yes, but when we try to get her to go on the potty, she says no. She does sit on the potty a few times a week, but never goes. I am not pressing the issue. We will just keep talking about it. (in the mean time I am using the amazon diaper delivery with super saver shipping - check it out! GREAT prices, free shipping, delivered on a schedule you set!)


• Many of my friends with kids her age are already putting their kids in big girl beds. I hope to keep her in her crib until she is 23. No really though, she has never attempted to climb out, she enjoys being in there. She even plays in there if we need to shower, or before and after her naps.


• She very much enjoys her bedtime routine. She still likes to drink milk and have a story (or 5) while being rocked by Mommy or Daddy. She does not however like to cuddle after we turn the lights out. This makes me so sad because in the mornings when she gets up she is super cuddly for an hour or so and I miss out on that 4 days a week. So nighttime was my only cuddle opportunity and now she just wants "bed".

• She has been requesting specific songs at bedtime too. "Tinkle tinkle", "B,C,D,E", and "Ants" (twinkle twinkle, abc's, and the ants go marching)


• Do all 2 year olds have major ADD? Seriously, she pulls out toys and plays with them for 3 mins, then thinks of something else that she wants to grab and the next thing you know she forgot all about what she was doing and is onto a new focus. PIA for cleaning up the family room!


• She LOVES going over to her friends, P and Z house to play. She wakes up in the morning and asks to "ride in car, to Pheephee and Zaners house? Pway toys, books?" Every single day....I have been trying to get her over there at least once a week. She just loves to play with other kids so much.

I guess that pretty much sums it up for her as of right now. She is constantly moving, going, running. She is the sweetest, cutest, goofiest kid around. Love her so much~

I can't blog from my IPAD!!!!

Seriously, what will I do? I simply don't get on here (laptop) any more. I have googled like crazy and bottom line, blogger.com and the IPAD are not compatible (come on blogger catch up with the times!!!!). Because of this (I will use this as my excuse for all issues wrong with the world from here on out) I have lacked in blogging. Not so much in reading and commenting, that works fine (makes tons of sense, yes?). I missed Friday night left overs yet again, so I am going to simply give you a brief review of my "blogging notes" from this week.

• Have you seen the IKEA commercial on HGTV about kitchen styles? Towards the end the couple walk into the picture and the guy slaps the woman's ass. It caught me by surprise when I saw it. Then it was on again and YUP that's what he did. Nothing wrong with it, just not what you normally see in HGTV.


• I took an IPAD workshop at the Apple store today. LAME, an hour I will never get back. It was me and 8 80year olds. No for real, stop laughing. The girl teaching the workshop did NOT know her audience. She was like 10 (ok maybe 21) and talked a mile a minute. The people kept saying "where is the home button?" "how do you double click". I literally had to hold the hand of the lady next to me and help her along the way. My final observation was that I am simply an IPAD wizard.


• I have become addicted to that stupid F*ing Angry Birds game. I swore I would not get involved in the "games" aspect of it, and then T downloaded it and forced me (yes really, like held a gun to my head...well not really) to try it (peer pressure). I have beat 2 of the 3 free versions so far. And am almost done with the 3rd.


• I hate left lane drivers. The ones that don't speed that is.


• Exactly 3 months until I am on vacation in the Cape!


• Still no word on any of my interviews. Jerks


• One of my child hood friends, one of my best actually, is getting married in June. She asked me to be in her wedding. I took a half day off work yesterday and went to try on dresses. After literally 12 dresses I finally decided on this one. Seems like a good cut and fit for my curvy body shape.


• Got K and her friend L's easter baskets all set. No candy in either. They have a many years of candy filled easter ahead of them.


• T's Mom is looking into putting her house on the market. Cleaning it out and sorting through 30+ years of her memories is going to be hard. As much as I want to trash it all (I am not a hoarder at all) I have to keep reminding myself that this is her life, memories, history. I will try really hard to be sensitive to that.

I really do owe a post about K. Tomorrow after we go swimming I will do that...Happy Saturday everyone!