Tuesday, November 22, 2011

k8's 2011 Special Thanks

Thanksgiving is tomorrow!  I have saved you all from my daily updates about what I'm thankful for so that I'd have an excuse to make another list.  I am thankful for lists!  And so much more.

In no particular order, thank you for...

Blessing me with a mind to rhyme and two hype feet.  Oh wait, MC Hammer already covered that one.

Joe  The other day, Joe asked me, "Why is everyone on Facebook saying they're thankful for shit all the time?"  Hahaha!  Also, sometimes he's intentionally funny.  He works his butt off (literally, he has no butt!) so I can stay home with the girls as much as possible.  It's a perfect mix of adorable and hilarious to watch him with the girls too.

Stop moving so I can crack your neck brush your hair.


My quirky kid  I'll just come right out and say it, Violet is a weirdo.  She is her mother.  She makes me laugh so much though.  I love everything about her.


Permanent cheese face.

My serious smartypants  What Leela lacks in silliness she more than makes up for in curiosity and crazy smartypantsness.  Some days I expect her to build a chalkboard out of thought and air and start doing some damn calculus in the living room. 


How many of these woodchips would I have to hoard to construct a tricycle and gtfo of her?

Watercolors   I haven't seen Violet in 3 days since I found the pack of water colors in the junk drawer.

Yo Gabba Gabba   Since I have to be a responsible adult now that I have two children, I watch YGG and pretend I'm trippin balls instead.

A job  I hate it, but at least I have it to hate.

My couch  Many hours has this couch served me well.

Art  Art is subjective as fuck, and I like that.


Violet: WTF is it Dad?    Joe: *fart*

Sliding Boards  It's such a simple idea, yet there's so many possibilities!

Gravity  Good for pulling us down slides.  Also good from keeping Violet from flying up into space!  And I'd miss her.  Although I totally wouldn't mind flying up after her.  Gravity, I no longer appreciate you - off my list!


At the top of the jump, push A again.


Running water  We went 6 months without water this year.  Ok, it was actually like 3 days while our pipes were being replaced, but it felt like months.  There are people in the world who don't have the convenience of plumbing, and I just can't imagine.

Robots, zombies, ninjas, medieval knights, dinosaurs, unicorns  And other cool things.

The rest of the family  More times than not, my family drives me bonkers, but it's cool having them around anyway.

Swings  Or playgrounds in general!  I have a sort of love/hate relationship with the swings now.  I want to play on them myself, but I have a damn baby to push.  God.  And I can't climb all over everything because she still can't walk.  Then when she can walk, I'll have to spend a year supervising her until she grasps the concept of gravity (damn you again, gravity!).  Two summers from now though, it's on.



Al Gore  For inventing the internet for me to enjoy on my couch.

Weight Watchers  I'm down 60 pounds from my fattest and 80 from my pregnantest, and I would have had no chance of doing that on my own.

Stripes and polka dots  I like simple things.

Forks  I hate getting my hands dirty and I'd probably starve if I had to touch my food.  (Note to future self: possible weight loss plan.)

Astronauts  I'm not really sure how I've benefited from people landing on the moon, but I know they're cool as shit and that's good enough for me.


An alien!!


Duct tape  I saw a Mythbusters the other day where they repaired a plane with duct tape.   I don't have a plane but I do have a roof that needs repairing and I am seriously considering putting DT to the test.

Bridges  Have you ever thought about how cool it is that humans have figured out how to build hundreds-of-feet long roads in the middle of the air?  Bridges, engineers, construction workers, creative human minds - I'm thankful for you all.

Cupcakes  Who was the first person to think "Hey, I'm gonna take this flour and these eggs and this sugar and heat them up and then put more sugar on top"?  Well, I don't know.  But I am a fan of that person.

Clouds  It's weird to look at clouds and think of exactly how big and how far they are.  Then realize how tiny and close they are to us compared to the rest of the universe.  Sometimes I take comfort in knowing how insignificant I am.



Things in List Format  Satisfying to my ADD.

Dunkin Donuts  Love me some hot caramel lattes!

The differences in people  One time I was telling a girl at work about some farm I went to and they had cornboxes, like sandboxes, and I described it as "white people shit".  Sometimes I'm a little racist.  I'm just completely fascinated by different cultures and even the differences in individuals, and as long as I'm not the only person alive I'll never get tired of learning about other people's crazy shit.

My vision  I just really like being able to see.  Right now I can see my computer, my hands, my "cloudburst"-colored walls, a pink blow up soccer ball, a pinecone, a sit'n'spin, a picture of Violet in a pink bunny costume...  I'd be pretty sad if I could never see any of that.

Carnivals  Carnivals actually embody everything I dislike - thick, smelly air, big crowds, bright lights, loud sounds, tons of clutter and movement and chaos.  Somehow they combine perfectly into the anti-anxiety attack for me though.  In my next life, I'll be a ferris wheel.  Please don't vomit on me.

Me and Violet are on there somewhere.

Insane amounts of luck  I'm nowhere near rich or powerful, but I'm alive and well and so is everyone in my house.  I haven't done anything to deserve that but I hope it stays that way forever!

A sense of humor  Everything is easier when it's a joke.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

If I was a

If I was an astronaut, I'd be the Original Tangsta.

If I was a cook at a steakhouse, I'd be Optimus Prime Rib.

If I was a bricklayer, I'd be the Stack Daddy.

If I was alive in the 60s, I'd be Hippiepotamus.

If I was a porn star, I'd be Dildope.

If I was lesbian twin bodybuilders, I'd be the Scissor Lifts.

If I was a breastfeeding party, I'd be a Letdown Getdown.

If I was a flactuating Spartiate, I'd be Fartin Spartan.

If I was Violet or Leela, I'd be Children of the Corny.

If I was a blogger, what in the Sam Hill would my name be?!?!

They say a way to test the success of your kid's name is to imagine them as president.  Well, that doesn't work with blog names.  For some reason though, I imagine if William Shatner can pronounce your blog name and still sound cool as fuck, then you've hit the jackpot.

Dear God people, I need help naming this blog.  The Shat could not pronounce "abozubgo" and he sure as crap would not sound cool saying it.  Help me.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Turkey Potpourrki

Today I'm going to teach you how to turn your leftover Thanksgiving carcass into a savory scented candle to smell up your house for weeks after the holidays are over.

Just kidding!  But wouldn't that be kinda awesome?  I wonder if someone makes turkey candles or plug-ins already...

Now, onto craft time!  Hand and footprints are currently sweeping the nation on moms' "cute sentimental craft crap" Pinterest boards.  I'll admit, I bit.  There's handprint flowers and bugs and animals all over my refrigerator, but today I decided to go 3D.



Steps to make a Turkey Potpourrki
1.  Go to the Dollar Store.  The actual dollar store where everything is a dollar, not that deceiving Family Dollar store where you walk in and THEN they tell you shiz is as low as $1.

2.  Locate a pack of construction paper, a bag of brown potpourri (or hell, any color will do if you want your turkey to be flamboyant), a small glass bowl, pipe cleaners, and markers, scissors and glue if you don't already have them. 

3.  Purchase the items on the supply list.

4.  Trace your kid's hand onto a piece of construction paper and use it as a stencil to cut out 10 or so more hands.  Or let them put painted handprints on the pages and cut those out.  I was not in the mood for a mess this particular day.

4.5.  Give the scrap pieces to the little one to practice cutting into little confetti-type pieces - you'll use these, so save them!

5.  Glue the hands together into a fashionable tail feather.  Optional step: Shake it.

6.  Trace your kid's foot.  Observe how freakishly large your child's foot looks in 2D.  Cut the freak foot out and draw a crazy turkey face on the heel.  Voila, turkey neck!

7.  Pour some of your cheapy potpourri into the glass bowl.  Remember those colorful paper scraps?  Put those in with the potpourri to jazz up your turkey's body a little.

8.  Glue or tape the tailfeather and the turkey neck to the body.  Bend and attach two pipe cleaner legs.  Bam!  Turkey Potpourrki!

Quirky turkey.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

How is everyone else doing with No Shave November?

Movember?  Frovember?  Novembeard?

I'm still going strong.  Although it hasn't been that much of a challenge considering I also participated in Opt Out Of Shaving October and Save the Razor September (two months I clearly did not just invent).

This is currently what I look like naked:



Yes, my hair has indeed matted into a utility belt.

This is Joe's face every time he sees me:



He's all "WHY YOU NO SHAVE, RADY?!" (that was probably slightly racist, sorry).

On a semi-related note, I know I'm currently hairy like a man, but I'm tired of being treated like one.  The guys at work are constantly talking guy in front of me like there's no chance I would be offended or at least grossed out by them.  This one old perv likes to tell stories complete with demonstrations of his sexcapades.  One time he demonstrated how a girl peed on him like he was a train track.  It was... interesting.

I'm forever getting the shoulder pat at work too.  Not a gentle "Hi sweetie" hand resting on my shoulder, but the burly "HEY FELLA" knock-you-over almost-punch.  I'm like a baseball glove away from it being acceptable to pat my ass "good job" every time I correctly lift something heavy.

Come to think of it, it's probably not so much that I'm awesome enough to be "one of the guys", it's probably just that people will tell me literally anything.  Once my neighbor told me she yelled at the L&D nurse that her dad was staying in the room while she gave birth because "This ain't the first time he's seen this pussy and it ain't gonna be the last time" (um, what?).  When I worked at the gas station, an elderly man told me he puts a pillow under his lady friend's tush to help with, erm, angles.  Then there was the time a woman told me she sweat so bad her pad lost its stickiness.  And the time my boss told me about his adventures in morningwood.

Ok, wow.  I have no idea where I was going with any of that, but I think I'm going to just give up now rather than try to recover some sort of normal blog post (that's my normal protocol).

Plus, Joe has his hand in his mouth right now and just asked me, "Can you move your teeth?"  I may have to go locate a long string and a doorknob.  Then maybe I'll paint my nails or some girly shit.  (I doubt it).

Monday, November 14, 2011

Options for nursing in public

When Leela was a teeny tiny baby and I was still new to breastfeeding, my sister came to visit.  I was appalled at the idea of my sister seeing any amount of skin where my shirt should be so I made her look away while I latched the baby under a blanket. 

She told me that at some point I would stop giving a crap and I'd be whipping my boobs out left and right to feed the baby wherever I was.  At home with guests, at a restaurant, in line at the grocery store, vendor shopping at the fair?  Nope, never.  Not me.  I firmly believed I would have it so that outings would coincide perfectly with the end of a feeding and not once would I be put to the uncomfortable, difficult task of nursing in public.

Yeah.  I'm retarded.

I think I held out for a few months.  At first I'd refuse to leave the house until after Leela finished eating.  Then I had a phase of parking the car at the far end of the parking lot and feeding her, even if it was in the middle of a dinner out or food shopping.  Then my awesome internet friend sent me a really sexy cover and I just turned my back to the crowds of people for extra caution.

Now I'm happy to say, my sister was, eh hem, right.  A crap is no longer given by me.  In one fell swoop, I'll pull Leela out of her high chair and have my boob in her mouth in the middle of Denny's and never miss a beat in shoveling pancakes in my mouth.  And on-lookers will never have a clue!

Because I consider myself a pro now, here's a how-to for nursing in public.

1.  Bring along a bottle of formula or expressed milk
Assuming you have bottles, fill them up and leave the house.

Pros:  Absolutely no chance of flashing anyone unless your shirt spontaneously combusts.
Cons:  Preparing bottles, heating bottles, cleaning bottles.  Wasting unused milk.  Replacing nursing sessions with bottle-feeding without pumping will affect your supply if done too often.

2.  Receiving blanket
In my weird transition from private car-nursing to public cover-nursing, I had a brief stint with receiving blankets and "quick" latching.  Honestly it sucked and I do not recommend it. 

Pros:  You probably got more receiving blankets than you know what to do with at your baby shower, so it's free.
Cons:  It's awkward.  You can't see what you're doing.  There's no breathing holes for the baby.  It will fall off.  Your baby will not cooperate.

3. Smother your boob-lover under a cover
If you're going to cover up, spend a little extra on a nice cover with an adjustable strap and a rigid neckline.  The strap will keep it in place and you won't have to fear flashing your fellow public-goers when the flailing baby rips the blanket from your bra strap.  The boning in the neckline will create a little peephole for you to see the baby to latch and make googly eyes at, and for strangers to catch a peep too.  Just kidding!  Well mostly kidding, unless a stranger is brazen enough to stand directly over you and hope the baby unlatches at the exact moment they look in.

Pros:  Very discreet.  Pretty comfortable.  Some hooter hiders are quite fashionable.
Cons:  Nothing says HEY DON'T LOOK OVER HERE BECAUSE I AM CERTAINLY NOT BREASTFEEDING A BABY AND THERE IS CERTAINLY NOTHING TO SEE like a big paisley printed convulsing blanket on the front of a woman's body.

4.  Undershirt down, overshirt up, boob in
At some point the cover became more of a nuisance than trying to keep Leela from crying too loud until I could get to my car.  I decided to practice my discreet nursing techniques at home and soon realized I am the bomb at discreet nursing!  Aw 'screet 'screet 'screet!  What you need to do is buy some nursing tanks, or better yet, some regular tanks a size big to accomodate neckline stretching, and start wearing them under everything.  Reach up your shirt, pull down the neckline of the undershirt under your boob, unhook the bra and expose your boob to your top shirt.  Hold your baby in the nursing position with their little shakey mouth directly in front of you so that when you lift your top shirt you can slip the baby right on without anyone getting a glimpse.  Adjust your shirts if you have to so that literally no skin is showing and it looks like you're just holding the baby.

Pros:  No skin showing.  No cover or blanket to carry around.  An excuse to layer fun colored tanks under your shirts.  Non-nursing tanks can be used after weaning.
Cons:  You tell me... ?

5.  Announce loudly to people in the general area "I'M ABOUT TO FULLY EXPOSE MY BARE BREAST IF EVERYONE COULD BE SO KIND AS TO NOT LOOK"
I use a combination of this and #4.  I've become so familiar with my boob in the past 10 months, it's seriously old news, and the only thing I find offensive about it is that it is droopier than I'd like.

Pros:  Easy.
Cons:  You only get to invoke your inner Lil Jon and sing "aw 'screet 'screet 'screet!' if you're actually being discreet

Saturday, November 12, 2011

I am Socially Awkward Penguin

My apologies to anyone who has already heard today's story of social retardation. I've been telling it to everyone to hear a few laughs to help lessen the pain of embarassment.

(Background: I drive a forklift at Costco on the weekends.)

So this morning, I'm at work, and I noticed I was getting some merchandise in.  I wanted to ask my manager if it was going to be a whole shit-ton of pallets like last weekend, so I wanted to use a big number, like 85 million.  When I was asking him though, my brain just ceased all function, and I just said the digits. 

"Are we getting 8... 5..."

I couldn't figure out how to recover from this obvious clutterfuck of a "sentence", so I didn't even try.  I just stopped and drove away.  I glanced back at him as I was driving away and he had a very obvious look of wtf-just-happened smeared across his face.

The only other time I can remember feeling like such a complete and utter moron is when I was at my post-partum check up after Leela.  My midwife asked how everything was, and I replied, "It's all good,..."  Then as I said it I guess I kind of realized I was surrounded by pictures and 3D models of vaginas, and felt it appropriate to finish my sentence up with "... it's all good in the clitoral hood."



WHY AM I ALLOWED IN PUBLIC PLACES?





P.S.  For those of you who don't know SAP, here and you're welcome.



Wednesday, November 9, 2011

When you accidentally wish death upon a loved one

This happened a month ago and it is still haunting me.

A little over two months ago my extremely independent yet tragically fragile grandmother fell and broke her arm, then randomly lost the ability to walk, probably because she was terrified of falling again, and who can blame her!  She was in the hospital for a few weeks and was miserable because she's the type who feels like she's being a burden if she asks for a ginger ale from the nurse whose job it is to get her a ginger ale.  She also had a roomie, who on top of being hard of hearing was also a little bit crazy.  So she always had her television on really loud, and she was always talking to it.  Really loud.  I don't know how Mommom survived it but thank jeebus she did!

Anyway, so my grandmother has gotten kinda grumpy in the last few years since my grandfather died, but for the most part she's one of those really sweet old ladies that you like talking to because she shows a genuine interest in your life.  She seemed to really charm all the nurses because every time I went to visit, Mommom told me all about the nurses' great service and their aspirations in life and funny stories about whatever.  One visit, she was talking about her favorite nurse and how they had been discussing her career plans, and this little exchange took place.  *Names are changed to protect the innocent, and because I can't remember the nurse's name.

Mommom:  LaShonda is just such a sweetheart.  I don't know how she's taking such good care of me, I'd be exhausted if I was her.  She's working here full time, going to school at night AND she has a 4 year old son.

My mother:  Oh yeah?  What's she going to school for?

Mommom:  Well I thought this was a little weird, but she said she wants to be a beautician.

Me: (thinking: What's so crazy about that?)  Oh that's cool!  You should have her fix your hair up for you since you're stuck in bed!

Mommom:  *poker face*

My mother:  Wha... what did you say she wants to be?

Mommom:  A MORTICIAN.


Well then.  Maybe LaShonda could do my hair for me because I think I just died.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

I invented food!

Ok, I didn't invent food at all.  But I did invent two meals last week that actually turned out good!  No one ever taught me how to cook and usually it's very obvious, so I am so proud of myself for throwing some pantry items into a cohesive plateful of food that I'm going to pass them on.  Ok, who am I kidding.  These meals are some de-luxe peasant food, and hardly original, but they was yummy.

Chicken Biscuit Slop
I made this on accident because I wanted chicken pot pie but decided last minute I was too lazy to make pie crust or pot pie filling.  Also, this recipe is a science and you must use the precise measurements I give you.

What you need:
Butter
Onion
Chicken
Chicken broth (optional maybe, water would probably work)
Carrot
Celery or celery seed
Green beans
Peas
Cream of Potato soup
Biscuit mix
Milk
Salt and pepper in the usual places
A man who likes man food

First, don't preheat your oven because that's a waste of energy.  Next, melt a big chunk of butter in a large sauce pan.  Toss in half a chopped onion and saute.  Dice about a pound of chicken breast and throw it in with the onions when they look translucent.  Pour in enough broth to cover the chicken cubes and boil.  While that's boiling, chop some carrots (2 or 3 whole carrots or a handful and a half baby carrots.  Precise measurements, remember?) and celery (I almost never have celery and I think celery seed works just as well if you just throw some in there until it smells good).  Put chopped carrots and celery and a handful each of frozen green beans and peas into pot and add more broth to cover everything.  Season.  Boil everything long enough to get caught up on facebook, then come back and see if everything is getting soft.  Remove from heat and stir in one can of Cream of Potato soup.  The slop should be the consistency of a thick soup.  Once mixed thoroughly, pour the slop into the nearest oven safe cooking vessel.  Prepare biscuit mix according to my box, which was 2 cups mix stirred with 2/3 cups milk.  Drop biscuits in a single layer on top of slop.  Bake according to biscuit mix instructions, or until you can smell the food from your living room while you're folding towels.  Makes 4 man servings/6-8 woman servings.

Joe really really liked this.  I think because it was full of starchy goodness and the vegetables were meat-and-starch-flavored by time it was done.  I thought it was just ok, but for the small amount of effort it took to make I decided it was worth adding to the recipe book.

Next!


Cheeseburger and French Fries Pass-the-roll
This is a good one of those make-shit-out-of-nothing meals. 

You need:
5 or 6 potatoes
Ketchup
1 pound of ground beef
Salt and pepper
Ground mustard
Onion
Block of Velveeta cheese
Handful of shredded cheddar
Yellow mustard (optional if you're a wimp)

First, boil that water.  Nothing pisses me off more than having my shit ready to go and the water is still sitting there still.  Peel and thick slice however many potatoes you think you'll need for two layers in your baking dish.  For me it was 5 or 6 decent sized red potatoes.  Boil them.  Chop an onion and throw it into a non-stick pan.  When it is translucent, add ground beef, season with salt and pepper and lots of ground mustard.  If you don't have ground mustard, skip it, I'm not sure it made any difference in the taste anyway.  When your potatoes are soft but not falling apart, drain them, and use half to shingle a layer on the bottom of the pan.  Squirt a ketchup message on top of the potatoes (message ideas: "This is poison!" or "Your butt is big!").  Drain the ground beef mixture and spread it on top of the ketchuped potatoes.  Layer thin slices of Velveeta cheese on top of the ground beef so that every bite has some cheese but not too much (I used 1/3-1/2 of the block).  Layer the last half of the potatoes on top, sprinkle shredded cheddar on top to your preferred level of cheesiness, and throw it in the oven.  Bake at 450 until the top is brown.  I've eaten leftovers 3 times now so it makes at least 6 servings.

It tasted just like a cheeseburger and french fries in one bite!  But without the roll (get it, casserole/pass-the-roll?)!  I usually don't like mustard, but I was so excited with my creation that I threw just a little bit of mustard over top just to see what would happen.  If you make this recipe it is mandatory that you try just one bite with mustard because I can't explain to you how good it is, you just need to try it yourself.

FYI I used a really small rectangular pan for both of these recipes, and would recommend doubling the starch for both if you use a 9xsomething cake pan sized dish.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Nerd Confession

Last week I confessed that I say nope to soap, so here's my next "shameful" confession.

Some of my favorite friends live on the internet.

I'm not really sure how shameful it is or what.  I remember being in high school and talking to strange people on message boards and AIM regularly, but never ever ever considered them my real friends.  I assumed all people meeting other people from the internet were either toothless, desperate or pedobears.

It seems to be more acceptable and slightly less nerdy these days though.  I joined a mom forum in 2008 because I had an embarassing question about my big pregnant crotch or something, and I never once expected to make a second post, but somehow I ended up becoming part of a community and now I've met some of them!  In real life!  One trusted me with her life in the back of my swagger wagon on the way to dinner once, and one had the opportunity to touch my boob "on accident".  Another was slightly disappointed by the contrast in my online persona and my real life softspoken social awkwardness, ha.

I'm still not toothless or a pedobear, and I don't think I'm desperate, so I guess maybe it was never really that nerdy to make friends online and perhaps my perspective has just changed.  I think this is just yet another one of those things that motherhood has changed for me.  I still have my BFFs from high school and my few work friends, but between all of us I was alone in pushing out my Little Me's by almost 3 years.  And until the kids are in school, there's not a place that you have to go and have to mingle with other parents and force yourself into friendships with them.  And me being entirely too socially retarded, I find it difficult to force myself into library and playground trips at regular intervals to meet up with people.  I realize I'm not helping my "I'm not desperate" statement here.

Regardless, I have taken a genuine liking to these ladies.  They laugh at my dumb jokes.  They listen and sympathize with my dumb rants.  They have helped raise my kids in some ways.  They are way easier to talk to about embarassing things since I will never have to look most of them in the eye.  They have started businesses and gotten married and had struggles and lost loved ones and shared it all with me and taught me a little about what adult friendships should be like.  They're taking me through this weird not-many-mom-friends phase and hopefully will stick around for many many years!

So, I give my highly valuable endorsement to supplementing your life with genuine friends that happen to live on the internet.  Mom forums aren't that dorky.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Take your kids to the deodorant museum!

I've been wanting to take Violet to a museum for like a year now, but I wasn't sure if it's an appropriate place for a 2 year old.  I kept thinking there's an abundance of breakables and silence and bronze penii and a severe lack of stimulation.  But since fall is here and some days it's too cold for extended outdoor play, I decided to throw on some sweaters (yay fat cover uppers!) and take a shot at this museum thing!

We went to the BMA specifically because I remember being completely amazed by the contemporary art section as a kid, and I figured Violet would get a kick out of the bright colors and abstract squiggle bullshit too.  So it would be just my luck that that wing of the museum was closed that day, yep.  I'd already paid my parking though and it is not in my nature to give money to machines for no reason, so I accepted the challenge and took the opportunity to practice my discipline techniques (read: I'm a jew and we will stay here for 2 hours, damnit).


We probably could have skipped the inside of the museum, to be honest.

I figured the next best thing to contemporary art would be the expressionist stuff, so we made a left at Matisse and Violet started screaming about a circus or something.  I was actually really impressed by some of the things she picked out of the paintings.  We had brought along her Abby Cadabby notepad and a marker so I had her sit down in front of paintings she liked and draw something related.  It was really adorable and also mesmorizing to think about what her little brain thought she was drawing.  I saw *plaarbbbttt*, but she probably saw a flying elephant playing a saxophone over top a sea full of boats (those were all her favorite paintings).

We checked out some sculptures too.  I had Violet attempt to recreate the position of the sculpture if it was human, or tell me what sound it made if it was animal or unidentifiable.  Some weird 3 legged tower thing barked at us, so that was cool.  We passed by The Thinker and I asked her what he was thinking about.  She told me "His mommy and daddy."  Oh!  Now you know.

The owl rock says Hooo.

Other hits were the furniture dioramas ("doll houses") and the African and Ancient America sections ("ooo, spooky masks!"), but nothing did it like the scuplture garden.  Violet has a real appreciation for the juxtaposition of nature and slabs of bent steel.  Or she was just so excited to use her outside voice that she would have done a cartwheel at a turd on the ground, whatever.  (Actually she would ooh and aah at a turd on the ground at any time.  Maybe not the best example.)  Either way, the BMA's sculpture garden is the perfect balance of art and playtime for a toddler, and a beautiful place to have a quick lunch before your nipples freeze off in the autumn air.


This giant balancing thing is hilarious!

The best part of this trip was that somehow I really beat it into Violet's head that she COULD NOT TOUCH ANYTHING in the museum or we would get in big trouble.  She repeated it all day long too, hours after we were home - "We can't touch da 'zeum.  We get in biiiiiig trouble."  It somehow flashed me back to before I was pregnant, how I used to say I couldn't wait to have kids so that I could lie to them, and how now would be a great time to lie to my kid!  So for a few days, when we were out I would tell her we were at the museum.  Furniture store?  Sofa museum.  Grocery store?  Food museum.  Target?  Deodorant museum.  It kept her little hands from grabbing at everything or climbing on anything.  Eventually I forgot about it and she did too, but it would be worth another trip to the museum soon to have that little trick up my sleeve again.

So yeah, art museums have my official endorsement for toddler consumption. 

P.S.  Leela was there too.


Wednesday, November 2, 2011

No soap for you!

Oy.  How to say this without sounding like a grossbutt.  Is that possible?

Well first, Happy No Shave November!  I just found out that apparently No Shave November is intended for male use only, for awareness of ball cancer or something.  Whatevs.  I can be aware of ball cancer the same as any man.  PLUS, I'm married, so really every month is No Shave November right?  Sorry Joe.

Anyway, more about me being gross.  There's really no way to ease into this subject, so I'll stop beating around the bush (heh heh).

I don't use soap.

Joe's been calling me a hippie non-stop for the past 3 weeks since he found out.  I am also into giving birth naturally, electric lawnmowers and pulling empty bottles out of the trash to put them into the recycling bin.  I've also only used shampoo a handful of times in the past 2 years.  Yeah, maybe I am a tad hippy dippy.

It all started when Joe stuck a baby in me.  I was already the type to suffer through aches and pains because "who knows what Advil really does to you and it doesn't work anyway", but suddenly I had a tiny person inside me and was aware of everything I was putting into myself and of all the crazy shit that was in the outside world that would be housing my tiny person in a few months.  I didn't want anything I put on her or in her or near her to affect the rest of her life negatively.  I didn't want her to end up a fatty like me so I was crazy about food for a while.  I didn't want her hormones messed with so we did all organic meat and milk for a while.  I didn't want her to end up allergic or sensitive to certain materials or chemicals so everything touching her was cotton and fragrance free and blahblah.  I didn't want her to have skin like mine (dry and acne-prone) so we didn't overdo it on the baths and used just a small amount of product.  And so on.

Eventually I got over it and got lazy again, on most things.  Now I'm crunchy only when it doesn't require extra effort or money, or if it only requires a tiny bit of extra effort but saves me a ton of money.  And such is the case with no pooing.  I read about no pooing right around the time all my pregnancy mane was falling out after Violet, and so my hair went from thick and shiny to this weird thick-ish-maybe, dull frizzy rat's nest-ness, and I figured there was no way my hair could be worse.  So I picked up a 10 pound bag of baking soda at Costco (it is SO HUGE [that's what she said]) and went two months without shampooing my hair... took a regular shampoo hiatus, then a few months later I whipped my baking soda bag back out and the rest is history.  I now have only used shampoo in my hair every once in a while (like maybe monthly, if that) when I run out of baking soda in the shower and am enjoying the warm water too much to get out and refill my cup.  I don't know if it's because I have that I-don't-give-a-fuck type of hair or what, but as far as I'm concerned you can't tell a damn difference, except my hair doesn't look plastered down to my scalp with oil the next morning.

So I noticed my hair had become less greasy from the lack of shampoo chemicals and crap, and it got me wondering about how my skin might react to less chemicals.  Normally I have awful awful dry skin with excema patches everywhere and open, bleeding cracks.  I'm extremely sensitive to scented things, and even just water would cause my skin to get tight and then feel rough a few minutes later.  One day (while I was still pregnant with Leela) I ran out of body wash, so I was just like "screw it" and didn't bother buying anymore.  I gave my body an extra scrub with water at shower time and went on with my day.  I didn't feel any cleaner or dirtier after my showers so I figured I'd just keep going with it until I was at the store the next time and could pick up a bottle of something. 

I'm happy to report that 10 months later I have yet to pick up that bottle!  My skin is dry-patch-free and is never tight feeling or itchy like it used to be.  And I'm sure I've saved tons in body wash.  On days I get extra schweddy or dirty in some way, I mix up another cup of baking soda water and rinse with that.

So.  There's my dirty secret.  Go ahead and call me a hippie if you must, but I'm immune to it after the bashing I've received from Joe over the last weeks!  But I will raise this point in favor of No Soaping - it took me telling Joe after 10 months of not using any for him to realize I don't use soap.  And he, on occasion, goes near my should-be-stinky parts, so he would be the one to know know if I'm unhygienic, right?  Right.  +1 for water bathing!
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