01Nov
Well, Halloween this year was an epic fail on my part. But Bean? He NAILED Halloween this year…
He even roared.
My favorite part of this particular picture? The toes sticking out at the bottom. Classic.
Bean trick-or-treated like he’d been doing it for years. Like a pro. He’d saunter up to a house, smile sweetly, hold out his pumpkin bucket, and wait patiently while people fawned all over him and loaded his bucket with loot. Then he’d say, “Tank tou. Bye bye!”
I mean, he rocked.
You know who didn’t rock? Me.
In my defense, we were supposed to be out of town still on our camping adventure but we ended up coming home early because apparently it is difficult for pregnant women to sleep comfortably on a blow up mattress in a tent. Who knew?
So, we got back into town early and I had NOTHING ready for Halloween. Thankfully, I’d gotten Bean a costume for a Halloween party at his school so that was covered. But I had no candy, no decorations, no pumpkins. Nothing. Which meant that on Sunday morning I was frantically running up and down the aisles at Walmart grabbing anything orange. I ended up with tangerines, but then realized that I would become “that neighbor” who gives out fruit. I then also wondered if it was still legal to give out fruit to strange children. Wasn’t there some rule or law about individually wrapped things? No?
Anyway, I was in a pickle. Luckily, they still had a couple bags of candy (naturally, only the most expensive candy was left…). And I remembered seeing a pile of rejected pumpkins by a dumpster at a local church in my neighborhood. They had been selling them for weeks as a fundraiser and what didn’t sell they piled up in the trash in their parking lot. So, I made Chris take me over there and I picked through the reject pumpkins with other misfit parents.
This was all I came up with…
Aren’t they weird looking? What’s with those colors? I just crossed my fingers that in the dark they’d look…mysterious…or something. But really, I think they just looked like messed up pumpkins sitting on my porch.
To compensate for the pathetic pumpkins, I decided to collect anything Halloween-ish in my house and put it all on a table on the front porch. I thought maybe it’d look cute. But it just looked kind of weak.
Especially when you consider that some of my neighbors practically had haunted houses in their front yards. Eh, well. Minus ten parenting points for me for Failure to Execute on a Holiday. I’ll take my penalty and call it a day. I’m learning that in parenting, you win some and you lose some. As much as I’d love to be that mother who has it all under control, that will never be me. So, I’ll just take my little lion and head back to our imperfect, happy little house together. Life’s more fun when you’re dumpster diving for pumpkins anyways.
(Isn’t that cross-stitched on a pillow somewhere? No? Well, it should be.)
01Nov
Okay, imaginary friends. I need some help.
Bean eats terribly. And since Bean is 18-months-old and can’t fix himself his own meals, what that really means is that I feed my son terribly. When he was little, I spent all this time preparing homemade baby food for him. It was steamed veggies and fresh fruit. I even cut out the juice. I was so healthy conscious.
And then I went back to work.
And then I became pregnant.
Those aren’t excuses. They’re just facts of life. I’m not home all day to prepare and store food for him and by the time I get home in the evenings, I’m beat. Now, mealtime is all about speed. I’m tired and the last thing I want to do is prepare some big, lavish, healthy meal that Bean won’t even eat anyway. For the most part, I can manage a healthy, well-balanced MEALS, but what I’m having trouble with are snacks. It’s so convenient to grab a bag of pretzels or goldfish, but I feel like that’s such a cop out. Surely there are quicker, healthier snacks for him to eat out there. I just haven’t thought of any.
So, I’m asking you all. What in the world are you feeding your toddlers that is healthy and quick and portable. We’re on the go a lot and most of Bean’s snacks are in route somewhere. Any suggestions would be more than welcome! Help a motha’ out!
I had last Friday off for a school holiday and so we took advantage of the three-day weekend by getting out of town. As much fun as we have and as many things as we try to get out and do, it has been years since Chris and I took a voluntary vacation. Sure, we go and we do, but most of our travel is tied to a holiday and we usually find ourselves heading to wherever family is. I really think that we haven’t chosen a destination and planned a trip for just ourselves since our honeymoon. And, of course, that was all before Bean.
Money is tight right now and our time was limited, so we decided to head to Sanibel Island, a little beach town about four hours south of Orlando. The best part was that we decided to camp. I grew up camping. My parents took my sister and I all over the country in a little burnt orange pop-up camper from 1970. If I close my eyes, I can still see the brown and orange plaid pull out beds and smell the dusty, musty smell of that camper. It’s one of my greatest memories. My mom and dad have pictures of us camping from the time I was Bean’s age before my sister was born all the way up through our teens. To this day, one of my favorite sounds in the whole world is the sound of people walking on gravel. Reminds me of the campground early in the morning as people walked by our campsite on their way to the bathhouse.
Chris started camping in college when he spent a few summers working out in Utah. His camping was very different. He and his friends used to throw their camp stuff in the back of a truck, drive out to the middle of a national forest, and make camp. No running water, no electricity, nothing. He took me camping one time like that in college and though it was fun, I am more of a campground girl myself. I don’t mind sleeping in a tent. I can throw down a sleeping bag on the ground like the next person. But I like having people around. Campgrounds just suit me better.
Camping introduced Chris and I to a whole bunch of experiences we’d never have had otherwise. It teaches you about responsibility and the importance of taking care of yourself and your things. It exposes you to different places and opens your eyes to the beauty of nature you just can’t find in your own backyard. And camping people are just good people. You meet so many people from all over in a campground – families, groups of friends, retired couples, young couples. And everyone there is just having a cheap, fun, good time.
We have been excited about taking Bean camping since we first found out we were pregnant. And this past weekend, we felt like it was time. So, we loaded up in the car and headed out.
When we got to the town of Sanibel, we had to cross a big bridge to get over to the little island community where we were staying. We got there just at sunset and as we drove over the tall bridge, the view was amazing.
And then we got to the top of the bridge and the most beautiful sunset greeted us. The picture doesn’t even do it justice. It was breathtaking.
We headed straight to our campground to check in and get set up before it got too dark. We stayed at a cute little campground called Periwinkle Park.
The campground was part campground for campers passing through like us and part residences for snow-bird retirees who lived in these adorable little beach bungalows.
Unfortunately, what the website did not mention was that it is also partly a wild bird preserve. Which is awesome. Yay wildlife! But what was un-awesome was that the birds were kept in an area about 10 feet from our campsite.
These birds were beautiful, well-cared for, and FREAKING LOUD! They squawked all night long! ALL NIGHT LONG! It was like sleeping in the Amazon. Chris and I were annoyed, but Bean? He thought they were the coolest things ever. We couldn’t keep him away from the bird area.
This picture was taken around 6:30 in the morning. Bean woke up and instantly wanted to go see the birds. And since we were on vacation…well…we did whatever he wanted.
Once our early-bird wildlife outing was over, Bean came back to the tent and hung out with me and Chris a little bit. We brought Bean’s pack ‘n play along with us and popped it up inside the tent and that’s where he slept. Then Chris and I camped out in style on a blow up air mattress (I AM pregnant, after all, so I afforded myself a little luxury on this camping trip…).
Bean liked that our tent had sky-vents in it and he could see the trees when he laid down.
I think Chris just liked having Bean there…
After our slow moving morning, we finally got up and going. Lots to do when you’re camping! Chris and Bean went to work preparing breakfast. They started by lighting the camp grill.
Bean loved every minute of cooking at the campsite. He was right by Chris’ side helping the whole time. The only thing he didn’t like was the smoke. It made him cough.
But he did like that the smoke went up into the air. He watched it blow away for about 15 minutes, pointing to the sky and saying, “Ohhhhh!!!”
But he sucked it up like a real camper and went back to helping Chris.
He didn’t even mind when he got charcoal all over his face. As long as he was helping, he was happy. (Isn’t that the Boy Scout motto? Well, it should be…)
Chris and Bean made us a big camp breakfast. Sausage…
Eggs…
And toast…
Then I took it one step further on the scale of Awesomeness and put it all (minus the toast) into a hot dog bun leftover from dinner the night before. Voila! Breakfast on the go!
Bean loved it!
Mostly though, I think he just loved hanging out at the campsite.
Camping was a big hit with Bean Man and it was a lot of fun for me and Chris, too. It’s great when you can take things you loved before you had children and then see it in a totally different light once you can share it with them.
Up next? Our visit to the beach on Sanibel Island (complete with a cold water campsite bath for Bean Man, thanks to his new hobby of burying his head in the sand…). Check back tomorrow for Part Two of our Mini-Vacation, Mega-Fun Adventure!
03Nov
Last night I had to go to the emergency room.
Don’t believe me?
Check out my cool new paper bracelet.
BAM!
How’s that for official? I think I’m going to wear it to school tomorrow and tell my kids they better be nice to me or I’ll end up back in the hospital and they’ll be stuck with a mean substitute.
I had to go to the ER because for the past two days I have had these sharp, shooting pains in my stomach. They were getting so bad that when they would start (they came and went), I would become short of breath and if I was standing, I’d get really lightheaded. Weird, huh?
So, I called my doctor who said that I needed to head to the hospital. Apparently sharp, shooting pains in pregnant bellies is nothing to mess around with. My good friend Sarah came to stay with Bean and then Chris and I headed up to the emergency room after work.
Any pregnant woman will tell you that a certain amount of pain in your abdomen is normal when you’re pregnant. Your insides are moving and your outsides are stretching and that’s bound to be painful at times. I know exactly what that pain feels like and I’ve been having it lately, but this was different. Turns out though that on your second time at this pregnant rodeo, that pain is worst if you’ve had a prior c-section because now it’s not just your muscles and organs that are moving around. Now, that scar tissue from your first c-section is actually tearing and shifting – hence that sharp, shooting pain that feels like someone is ripping me apart inside. They are!
The human body is a mysterious, masochistic thing.
But all that medical mumbo jumbo is not what this post is all about. What this post is all about is that, apparently, I need a muzzle because I have no filter on my thoughts whatsoever.
WHAT-SO-EVER.
Tonight when the doctor came in to do his exam, there were about six people in the room with us. Nurses, students, attending doctors, residents – it was a packed house. Standing room only. Literally.
So, as they are all filling in the tiny little exam room (where, I should point out, I am sitting spread eagle in the middle of), one of the nurses says, “It’s a party in here!”
And I, having ZERO filter in my brain, automatically spit out, “It’s not a party till somebody spreads their legs!”
Seriously.
I said that.
In a GYNECOLOGICAL EXAM.
I thought Chris was going to either a) crawl under the exam table in embarrassment or b) leave me.
The doctors, however, died laughing. Thank goodness. Cause the only thing worse than what I said would be saying it and then having to sit in an awkward silence. But they were laughing pretty good. It was just me, laying on that table, dying a slow death of embarrassment and silently cursing my blog for giving me the stupid idea that people actually want to hear these thoughts in my head.
NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR THOSE THOUGHTS, KATIE! NOBODY!
So, that was my night last night. Stomach pains, ER visit, highly inappropriate comment, Taco Bell, bedtime.
I think my work here is done.
