First Trip to the Zoo! or not

I must have lost my mind...but I decided that today was a GREAT day to take my little man to the zoo. Now let's just clarify that he is 9 months old (tomorrow) and I know that he will not know or understand the concept. But he LOVES staring/chasing the dog so I assumed that an elephant or a monkey would be triple as cool. So, I call up my friend Katie (who is still on maternity leave) and since I am on spring break (oh the joys of working for the school system) and see if her and baby Chase would like to join me on this adventure. She says of course because she would love to get out of the house, walk around and let the baby see the outside world. So off we go.. mind you it is about an hour and a half drive.. but the kids did awesome! They both napped and we chatted and we were like oh this is going to be so easy right!?

WRONG.

We get there 30 minutes after the zoo opens because of all the traffic from the Cherry Blossom festival.. and all parking lots are FULL and there are people with small children walking in front of cars without looking everywhere. At this point baby Chase is hungry and starts to cry and Ethan looks at him and tries to talk to him and even threw gave him a toy. So w are pretty desperate and we look for spots to parallel or a garage and there are nothing within a 10 block radius. Ethan is now upset because his friend is so upset. I make Chase a bottle and feed it to him from the front seat and I give Ethan a sippy cup. This keeps them content for about 15 minutes. In the mean time we decide we are just going to go get some lunch and walk around a bit so we can at least get something out of the trip. Which we finally do another 30 minutes later with highly pissed upset kids. That 45 minute drive through DC  (after the 1.5 hours it took to get there) where many people honked at us, we almost hit a few pedestrians, our children screamed, and we didn't even get to go to the zoo took a few years off my life

Alls well that ends well. Katie and I had yummy crab cakes for lunch and I got a new shirt from Ann Taylor Loft and Ethan enjoyed riding in his stroller outside and people watching.. which was close enough to a zoo within itself.

Picture Taking.. or lack there of

I have never been good at taking pictures in my life. There are many events that I wish I had taken more pictures at.. thank god for the miracle of facebook + sorority sisters (esp. ones we affectionately nicknamed paparazzi) or I wouldn't have pictures of some of the best times of my life. When I found out I was pregnant I promised myself I would take more pictures of my little one. I even asked my parents for a video camera for Christmas that year so that I could take videos of him. At first I did awesome. I have so many pictures of the first 3 or 4 months of his life. Then when I went back to work they got slowly less and less. Oh yea that video camera that I asked for.. I have a whopping total of 5 minutes of video. 3 videos in 6 months. It was just Ethan's first Christmas.. guess how many pictures I took? Maybe 10. So I will rely on family members again.

I used to think it was because I didn't have anything to do with the pictures except store them on the computer. But then I decided to take up scrapbooking one random day in college. Armed with my debit card I went to Michael's and Hobby Lobby (man I miss that place!) and bought more scrapbooking stuff than I knew what to do with. I laid out the whole book and put little post its on all the pages it would contain.. football games.. halloween..christmas..formals and date parties from the previous year and I even made my first page of pictures of a guy I dated in college and I and on the day we started dating (what was I thinking?) That is as far as it got. All that stuff is in a tupperware in my parents basement.

Then I thought it was because I felt awkward asking people to take my picture or if I could take their picture. But nope, lets be honest-- I'm not embarassed by much.

 It doesn't help that my husband HATES pictures. It was like pulling teeth to get him to take family pictures this year. They came out really good though! I will post some tomorrow. It was part of the baby plan that I signed up for at one of my fav. photography places. They take pictures at newborn, 3 months, 6 months, 9, months, and 1 year old. Too bad my 3 month turned into like 4/5 month pictures. Ooops.

The obvious trend here is that I don't know what to do with pictures and I rely on others to take them for me. All in all I just need to get over it all and take more pictures before my son grows up before my eyes and I do not have any pictures to remember it by. Does anyone else suck at life in the picture taking department?

I don't do..

There are certain things in life that you have rules against... Some people don't do certain foods, or certains types of clothing or certain types of alcohol usually after a bad experience...

For me it is cats.. I just don't like them. Anything that has 4 legs needs to go to the bathroom outside. End of discussion. No, I don't care that they go in a litter box.. you still have to clean it up.. it might as well be a diaper. And I change enough of those for my son. At least he will one day be potty trained and in the mean time we have a diaper genie to contain the smell. Cats just do their business in a glorified open top cardboard box. gross.


I also don't like that they hiss and scratch and they have beady little eyes. AND the fact that they climb all over everything.. cats on the kitchen counter? hello unsanitary.

and let's all be honest here.. they don't do anything.. you can't take them for a walk or a run.. you can't play fetch with them.. they don't sit, shake, or roll over.



No I haven't ever had a true bad expeirence revolving around cats.. and even my in-laws and my best friend own cats.. doesn't matter.


Basically DOGS > CATS. and in my house:


There are other things I don't do.. but those are posts for another day.. but in true preview style.. children's clothing with characters on them.. and yes there are some exceptions.

Meltdown

If you happened to be in a certain Southern Maryland Target store today..

and you happened to hear a baby screaming bloody murder..

I will sadly admit.. It was my child..

I was THAT mom with the screaming child that I never wanted to be.. I hope that I get a pardon since he still a little baby (not even 3 months old)

Daggers

So my dear husband and I have a system when it comes to getting up with the baby at night.

Before 4am: Me
After 4am: Him

Now some might think this is unfair since I have way more hours to cover. However he works and I don't. So thats a fair trade off in my book. Plus if it is after 4 he can feed him, change him, and put him back to bed.. then shower and go to work.. which allows me to get a few more hours of sleep.

This morning:

5am- Ethan wakes up-- Scott gets up
5-5:45- Ethan randomly screaming bloody murder
5:45- Jen gets up to see if she can help
5:46- S: can I help you?
J: just wanted to see if I could help?
S: I dont need help he is fine
E: *deafening screaming*
J: did you change his diaper? (seems obvious but often that is last on my sweet husbands list)
S: I said I don't need help
5:47- J turns around and walks back to the bed and puts pillow over her head
6- J hears S put E in crib. and thinks. He must be back to sleep
6:01- J hears E on baby monitor crying.. and shower running
6:02- J gets up and gets baby E

Nope he didn't need help at all.

Cue texting:
J: what was the deal with your big attitude this morning?
S: I was defending myself from the daggers you were shooting through my head with your eyes and body language
J: I didnt know that was possible.. sometimes we all need a little help with the baby, dear
S: There were definetely daggers. PS can you make sure the dog has food?

He sure does know how to change the subject.

Men.

Burritos, Nipples, and Running

So yesterday I ventured out to get a few things.. cereal nipples for my little one and new running shoes were on the top of my list..

as was having lunch with my mom here:


But shhhh don't tell my loving husband because he gets mad everytime I eat there with out him..


Which brings me to my next point.. my little man (who is almost 2 months ahh!) eats like a horse/pig/gorilla.. any of the above work.. so his pediatrician has suggested we add rice cereal to his formula.. we tried this before and this results were not pretty. I will spare you the details. However we have since added a new bottle to our collection (mostly because Ethan is not at all picky when it comes to eating and because I liked them) BUT they don't make nipples for thicker liquids (such as rice cereal added to formula) so I bought fast flow ones and I am going to make the hole bigger myself.. please pray that this does not lead to me spilling formula all over my child or him turning into the fat kid at school in a few years


Wow my life is so exciting..


anyway.. If you have read this far you should also know that my doctor cleared me to return to normal activity after my horrible delivery c-section. So I decided it was time for me to shed the rest of this baby weight and the extra weight I had before getting pregnant and get back into my running routine. So I bought some new running shoes because my old ones don't fit quite right after having a baby.. people said my feet would grow at least 1/2 a size. They were wrong they are still the same size I just think they are a tad wider so my narrow nike shox were not working for me. Back in the day I didn't sweat when I spent over $100 dollars on running shoes.. however now with the 3 B's.. Bills, Baby, and Building a new house (not to be confused with the 5 B's of recruitment all my fellow sorostitutes -- Bibles, Boys, Booze, Bucks, Brands) I was on the search for yet another "B" a bargain..


3 stores later and just over $40 dollars later I came home with some black/pink/gray/white Sauconys. They are way comfy and equally as cute as my other much more expensive shoes.


How did my run go you ask?


I ran a mile. ONE mile. and I thought I was going to die. So did my running partner, my pup Jackson.

Short Shorts

As a young child my dad taught me many things.. some of which include things like, "girls have long hair, boys have short hair" .. Included in this lesson for my children will be "girls wear short shorts, boys wear long shorts"

NO self respecting man should ever and i mean EVER wear these.. especially on national television!

MILLIONS of people now seen way more thigh of Ed than they ever need to see. I never did like him anyway and this just solidifies it for me and sweet tank top too while we are talking about this train wreck.

I liked Reid and I still like Kiptyn. Don't even get me started on Wes. But either way, Ed can go.. and apparently the chemistry wasn't there in the bedroom. If you are gonna marry someone you better make sure there is bedroom chemistry.. you are stuck with them forever..

not that any couples on these shows stay together anyway.. but a girl can dream.

Train wreck

So last night I went to the Taylor Swift (love her!!) concert with some peoples.

First of all way too many people told me I looked like I was going to pop.. thanks people.. im 9 months pregnant.. what do you expect? One lady went so far as to tell me she is NOT delivering my baby here at this concert.. lady.. news flash.. i didnt ask you to nor do I want you to..

Second of all.. there were way too many 11-13 year old girls wearing shorts like these:

Praise the Lord that I am having a boy.. but lets be serious if I ever have a girl there is no way they go out of the house looking like a fashion disaster. Or that their daddy lets them go out of the house with cheek showing.

On a nicer note Taylor Swift puts on a majorly good show! She sounds so good live! despite it being a muddy mess it was still a lot of fun!!

Turtle on its back

I just bent down to reach under the tv stand to get my dogs toy out from under it for him.. in the process I sat down and then could not get up..

seriously.. is it time for Ethan to get here yet?

Childbirth Classes

First of all I am officially 30 weeks pregnant.. which means baby Ethan will officially be here in 10 weeks..

that is serious.

to prepare for this momentous occasion hubby and I are attending child birth classes once a week for the next 5 weeks. Last night was the first one..

I didn't learn much.. except for (this is about to be tmi)how big the hole must get in order to get the baby out.. and this was just the introduction.

I should have requested the epidural the moment I saw 2 lines on the pregnancy test.

Holy Hell.

ANGRY

first of all Clemson was absolutely fabulous. I had a great time with my friends and I was so extremely happy to see some of the girls I hadn't seen in a long time. The baby shower was absolutely fab and I can't thank everyone enough for everything they did. There will be a much better post on all things baby shower later..

I cannot write about happy things right now.. because I am too PISSED off.

The basic 411:

I picked College of Notre Dame to go to graduate school because I would be able to work full time while finishing my degree. It is ridiculously more expensive then some of the other programs I could be enrolled in right now because it is private. But it WAS one of the sole programs that allowed you to work full time the entire time you were enrolled. So after discussing financially with the hubster we decided it was very doable for us to have baby Ethan and build our house and have me finish grad school.. as long as I was working. Well I get an email from my advisor today saying they have changed program requirements..

So i think okay lovely.. ill have to take one more class or an additional class.. whatever at this point it doesn't really make too much of a difference because I still have 1.5 years to go in the program. BOY was I wrong! There new requirements is that you full time student teach for an entire semester while NOT working. Meaning 5 months with no paycheck.. and that's if I could work up til the time I started student teaching and got a job right after I was finished.

So my whole reason for picking this program is null and void and now.. So now I will ponder what to do.. man oh man do I need a margarita right now!!!!!!