Under Pressure

Confession: Long weekend make me itchy.

Josh works a compressed work schedule (CWS) which means he works about an extra hour every day, but he has off every other Friday.  This is mostly a pretty sweet deal. 

Except when P and I are at odds and there are still 3 hours to kill before J gets home.

This past week Josh had off on Friday, and Monday so we were staring down the barrel of a fun filled four day family weekend.  Whenever we are faced with this uninterrupted family time we get excited, but plan way too much, which means we usually get snarky and snappy under the pressure of making each moment perfect and fun and amazing.

When I returned from work on Friday we headed to the barely there Farmer's Market and then to the store for some wine.  Josh was tired.  Parker was cranky.  I was feeling sticky and was quickly developing a monster headache. 

Saturday morning brought bright new beginnings.  P and I made coffee and pumpkin French Toast.  We ate together as a family, then Josh cleaned up our mess.  At some point though, things started to unravel.

I can't even remember what was said, but it was not a positive conversation.  We pushed on and loaded ourselves and the supplies for the day into the family truckster and headed to a pumpkin patch. 

It was unseasonably hot while we trolled around the patch, making our October Fall day more like a mid-August heat wave. 

We had $20 cash and made a strict agreement to not take out any more.  Somewhere along the way, we had a disagreement about who should be doing what and how to spend our last $10 (we ended up buying 2 beers- parents of the year). 

Last year we went to this same pumpkin farm and it was truly one of the best days of the year.  This time around, the day was just filled with this pressure to make it perfect again. 

We pulled P in our little red wagon, he got out, I let go of the wagon to chase him, leaving J with a run away wagon full of pumpkins, mums and slew of other crap not worth itemizing. 

We were sweaty and frustrated.  It was not like last year.

Then we had plans to hit up a cool German themed restaurant for dinner.  While we ate we played along and sang the songs and, despite missing his nap, we were able to coaxed P into happy baby mode.  We drank Gugunshinmen beer and ate uderbraten soaked in drunkenbrstein.  (I'm pulling out my creative spelling license here).

It was not the same as last year.

Sunday we spend the better part of the day- from 10:30a to about 3p searching for my car keys.  They were in my hands then they weren't. 

Vanished. 
Poof. 
Gone.

It was maddening.  I told Josh to just take P, who I was convinced hid the keys, out of the house. 

I needed to search on my own without someone following me around saying, "Mommy train?  Mommy train?" or "Did you check here?  Did you look there? When did you have them last?"

In the end we found them- in a drawer. 
More specifically, in one of my drawers. 
Most specifically, a drawer that is way too high for P to be able to get into. 

I truly have no clue how they got there.  I was stressed.  I was not very nice.  I felt terrible and if Parker was a wee- bit older he would have taken full advantage of my profound guilt.  I'm talking junior mints for dinner followed by popcorn and Yo Gabba Gabba till midnight guilt.

Today P and I cooked almost all day.  He's awesome.  He will stir gentle, pour carefully and taste anything.  He is a forgiving soul- thankfully.  Josh does not hold a grudge- thankfully.

I learned that when faced with a four day family weekend- not every moment has to be fun-filled and your keys are not in the last place you look, but in the last place you THINK to look.  (These are very different things.)

Every House Should Have One...

Also.  How the HELL do you get two pictures to be next to each other?

This is Why...

I think that as a family we have weak bed making skills.

I HATE making the bed. 

• Fitted sheets fill me with rage. 
• Uneven quilt lines make me itchy.
• Mismatched pillowcases send me reeling with frustration. 

It is because of these reasons that bed making is no easy task for me.  Josh is not good at it because everything I just  mentioned, the things that make the very skin on my arms melt off, is exactly what J does when he makes the bed.

The above picture is what happened when P tried to "help" me make the bed.  This is actually a mattress on the floor in the front room of our house- no one really or regularly uses the mattress or room.  It's just an extra mattress. 

If you get drunk at our house and cannot drive home, you will sleep on this mattress.

I was hoping my children would have better bed making skills than J and a deeper passion (or were at least less neurotic) about bed making than me.

So far that is not the case.  I have high hopes baby #2 will be a bed making fiend.

Luda

If you ask Pfunk what Santa is bringing him for Christmas, my little chumbawamba will tell you, in a very direct and distinct voice, "Big.  Bed."

I'm not totally sure if he gets that big bed = no crib, but meh. He'll figure that out soon enough.  We've been reading books about saying bye bye to the crib and how big boys sleep in big beds.  I honestly think he is more or less on board with this plan. On Christmas Eve he will be two and a half- perfect BB time in our minds.

My parents live near a state that does not have sales tax, so this weekend we packed up the family truckster and headed to Grammy and Pop Pop's house.  On Saturday J and I left Pman with the G'rents and went bed shopping. 

I HATE furniture shopping.  Everything I like is too expensive and everything we can afford is...o...k...but I fear for the shelf life and durability of "affordable" furniture.

We visited 4 stores and (I) likely pissed off several furniture store employees- No I don't want your help, No, I don't care about your sales if I don't like what I see then financing really does not matter.  We finally found a bed we liked:

The one we got is similar to this.  However, our does not have a roll away bed that could also serve as a hotel in some Asian cultures.  P's will have 4 drawers in lieu of another mattress. Sleep over schmeep overs- bring a freaking sleeping bag- that's what we did.

All of this leads up to the real reason for this post. 

On the way home from the rando furniture store, that incidentally was in the middle of no where and had a huge fake cow on the roof, we stopped to get a bottle of wine- tax free!  We picked a generic "Beer Wine and Spirit" store in a strip mall.  Granted, it was a newer strip mall- maybe 3 years old.

We saw a line of people- men, women, black and white- standing outside. There were several police cars lined up in the parking spots immediately in front of the liquor store. 

As we walked in we saw two large muscle men holding metal detecting wands and wearing black hats that read, "GUARD" in bold white lettering.

They were wanding (is that a verb) everyone as they walked in. 
No explanation. 
No eye contact. 
Just these huge men, unsuspecting liquor store patrons and metal detecting wands.

An elder couple looked horrified as they shuffled in and were wanded.  The woman clutched her seashell purse to her chest while the man reached toward his back pocket for his used handkerchief to wipe the shock of drool off his chin.

Another man walked up with a 3 year old boy and was told his son could not come in to the store.

Inside the store there was a camera with 4 large white swirly bulbs aimed toward a Hennessey backdrop.  A woman was all set up with a Hennessey bottle and several tiny shot glasses- for a tasting(?)

It was all very eerie and mysterious.

Until...as we were leaving the store we heard two people in line talking.  Ludacris (see photo below) was making an appearance at the liquor store.

In a strip mall.

Located more or less in a field.

Oh Luda

I know what you are thinking.  The answer is no.  We did not hang out at a liquor store in a strip mall at 2 in the afternoon on a Saturday to meet Luda. 

I hope I can pick up the pieces and move on with my life.

Down Hill (?)

Confession: Josh is a beer snob. Since graduating college, I have not seen Josh drink Miller Lite, Bud (of any kind) Coors etc.  He likes to drink beers that are so fancy they come in their own single bottles like wine. 

I think there is a beer gene.  I think Josh passed it onto our little Pweiser.

When Parker was a wee-bot the doctor told me I would know he is ready to try solids when he starts looking at, and going for, our food.

The first thing he went for was my Guinness.

Then at a his first Super Bowl Party I caught him dancing on the bar in a friends basement in his monkey butt pants.



On his first birthday, two of my uncles helped him celebrate...

So I suppose I should not be surprised that on Monday in the grocery store at around 4:00p.m. my two year old announced, for the whole shopping public to hear, "I want beer!"

I relayed this story to a friend and she said, "Oh, what did he mean?  Like root beer?"

No.  Sadly.  He actually meant beer.

Please understand, he has never actually had beer.  We have given him sips of coffee in the hopes he would hate it and stop grabbing at our mugs in the morning.  Of course, he loves it.

We went to the RenFest over the weekend and he got a "tattoo" A snake tattoo.  On his face.

Such and innocent face, but isn't it always the ones with the innocent faces?

Oh dear.

Confusion and Aggression

Confession: Parker has been behaving in a way that does not make me happy.

In the last two days my sweet boy has had two aggressive incidents, which he provoked, that required us to leave play dates.  In both cases, we do not know the families very well, but I foresee, or foresaw, blossoming friendships that would stick around for a bit.  I hope that is still the case with both sets of people.

I'm brave enough to tell you that much. I am too upset to go into too much detail about the specifics of the events. I will say hitting was involved, well hitting was all that was involved.
This is new territory for me.  He is usually on the receiving end of aggressive behavior.  I have rescued him from quite a few bullying sessions.  I have dried his tears when his feelings were hurt.  I have kissed his boo-boos, told him he was okay and sent him back into the world to play.

I am taking this bad behavior personally.  Like a X caused Y situation.  We don't hit Parker and we don't hit each other- we don't even play hit.  I am puzzled by where this is coming from, seemingly, out of the blue. 

Kids are not always a product of their parents, I know that.  There is a degree of nurture and nature in all of us.  Toddlers go through stages and sometimes those stages involve testing new boundaries.  Part of it is he is way in to babies (read: anyone remotely smaller than him) and does not truly understand "gentle" yet.

As I caught him being a prick to these two kids, I immediately snatched him up, made him say sorry- which he did, thankfully- and marched him straight home. 

I told him he was not being nice and when you are not nice you don't get to play with your friends. 

We...discussed, as much as you can with a 2 year old...what nice was, how to be gentle and how if you want to have friends you have to be both nice and gentle. 

Then we painted quietly together with watercolors. 

I do not want to be one of those parents who seem uninterested in disciplining their children.  When he acts like a brat, I will remove him from the situation.  However, I am someone who lets things cut deep and then I let them fester.  I pick and pick and pick at the emotional wound until I am consumed by it.  Parker got over it once we kissed and made up.  The kids he hit probably got over it before P and I were even in the car.  The parents probably think I overreacted by leaving so quickly.

However, I'm sitting here on the couch on a Saturday night- hours after each incident- blogging because I just need to get this out.

Things I know:
I am a good mom. 
My son loves me. 
He is testing limits and seeing how much jerky behavior I will tolerate as the parent- which is damn near none.
Parker is still sweet.
This will probably happen again.
I need to do what feels right to me as Parker's mom.
I do not need to pull him out of pre-school.  (Yes, I actually considered this.)

*sigh*

Run Nikki Run

Confession: I am not a runner.

There are two categories of people in the arena of running. 
One group is made up of people who run. 
The other group is made up of runners.  These people carbo load and run regardless of shin splints and side cramps.  They have special running shoes that look like this:

I am a member of the first group and wear normal size 11- yes 11 Asics. I started running about a year ago in preparation of the Baltimore Marathon RELAY, which is a month away!!  I couldn't run for more than 5 minutes when I started.  I can now run 6 miles- 6.5 next week. 

When I mention I just went for a run or am planning on running later or am running in a race, I notice people's reaction.  Generally they smile, look me up and down, slyly.  They seem to be in a a state of amazement and disbelief.  Like -She? Runs?  Or, "Yea, uh-huh. It's like what a walk run, right?" 

Ok maybe I'm being meaner to myself than anyone else has ever been.  I never thought I was capable of running like I have been lately.  I still have a hard time believing my pedometer at the end of a run.

This past Sunday, I ran a 5K in 29:30 in the rain.  In the POURING rain.


The race it self was unorganized.  I was told things like, "They are meeting somewhere over there behind the portapots." The course was not marked very well either.

During the race my cotton capri's were so weighed down that they became pants.  Shiny pants.  When the race was over, I changed into dry clothes, but I was so wet I had to go buy another set of dry clothes on the way home.

I have three sisters.  They are all awesome.  My younger sister, Lynsey, ran this race with me so at the moment, she is the most awesomest.  The rain worked to her advantage though.  She did not register for the race, but no one could tell because everyone's race number was covered up by their rain coats.  Except me, I was not wearing a raincoat. 

Thankfully the course was wide open and no one seemed to give a flyin flip that she was running.  She is an All- American Athlete. She is good at any sport she does.  She is tall and thin and has a body that makes other girls hate her.  Instead of speeding ahead and blowing rain and gravel in everyone's face, she hung with me the whole race.  I usually run a 12 minute mile, but because I was trying not to hold her up too much, I ran a 10 minute mile.

I felt great post-run.  I felt even better and way tired after our celebratory beverage post race.

Thanks Lyns. 
Thanks self-confidence. 
Thanks to the poor quality photo, which aside from my race shirt and a cheapo ribbon that declares RUNNING! in gold lettering, is my only proof of running this race. 
The actual "high" quality 4x6 photo is $8.99 +shipping- meh.