Come On FRIDAY!

Anxiously awaiting Friday . . . the dreaded day when Af is supposed to rear her ugly head.  Everybody pray to whatever it is you pray to that AF skips her trip for the next 9 months and I can be on my way to pregnancy land!

But just in case AF shows up uninvited anyway . . .I have devised a plan.  I’m happy about it, but something must be done!  So I am giving it until January, and if I’m not preggo by then, i’m going to take the giant leap and go on Metformin.  Side effects and all!  (read: Secondary Infertility sucks!)

With all the preggos waddling around me at work all day, I’m beginning think that baby dust is actually contagious, so I’m hopeful!

A Poop for an Ice Cream

One of the many joys of parenting is potty training.  Allen was less than enthusiastic about it for a loooong time, but a few months ago he finally got on board and has been doing great . . .with peeing that is.  Pooping, well that’s a whole nother messy story! 

Usually, he will wait until his nap or bedtime diaper is on, and then poop.  Doesn’t matter how long that wiat is . . . 15 minutes or 3 hours, he’ll hold it!  Until one day a few weeks ago when he actually decided to try poop on the potty, and realized it wasn’t that big of a deal.He does it on his own terms, of course.  He may not feel like going on the potty today, but maybe tomorrow he will. 

With preschool starting in a matter of weeks, I was becoming quite worried that I was going to have to lie (to the christian preschool) and tell them he was fully trained.  But then, I found Allen’s vice.  Ice cream.

He heard the ice cream truck coming down the street and declared that he wasnted ice cream.  I told him that if he pooped on the potty, I would get him some ice cream.  Simple as that.  No poop, no ice cream.

He got on board immeadiatly, or should I say got the potty immeadiatly.  This is not to say that I am al about bribing my kid to do what I want him to do.  I rarely bribe, but I felt this was an extreme situation.   And, much to my relief (and Allen’s, pun intended) it is working like a charm!  He poops, we sing a little song, and then he gets his ice cream bar.

Are You Kidding Me?

The best new baby item?  I think not.  High heeled baby booties.  What will they think of next? 

Created by Heelarious . . .and apparently very popular as they have been showcased on the Today Show, ABC News, and in print as well.  and stirring up quite a bit of controversy over the fact that babies aren’t meant to look sexy.  Several child saftey groups have been on the warpath over these little shoes!  I wouldn’t take it that far, but you will hear my opinion!

“The novelty pumps that let infants channel their inner Carrie Bradshaw come in six colors - leopard satin print, hot pink patent, black satin, zebra satin, black patent, and hot pink satin”

Perhaps we need to get our childen used to painful and damaging footwear early?  No, I think they were just hoping people would say, Aw,  look how cute those are!  But I can just imagine a baby with those chubby little legs crawling around in high heels . . .And what happens when she starts learning to stand?   If I saw a baby wearing these, I would think her mother was training her to be pretentious, self-absorbed and slutty.  Ah, but look, all the stars are puting them on their babies!  Well that makes it ok (ahem . . .insert severe sarcasm here)

I would not say, oh those are so cute and at $35 a pop i must buy a pair!  No.  Please do not put these on your children.  They are rediculous.

Now I’m Just Depressed

So I dyed my hair with a brown dye, hoping to get rid of the barbie blonde disaster.  Now that my hair is completly dry . . .I want to cry!

It has no shine, is rough and brittle and still looks like something out of Circus Freak Monthly magazine.  Why oh WHY did I do that?  Now not only do I wish I had NEVER bleached it to begin with, but i wish I had found a salon open on a Sunday and gone and payed to have it fixed!  After 2 chemical treatments in 24 hours, there is no way I can have anything else done to it for months!  All i was thinking about was not wanting spend any more money on this hair trauma and being able to show my face in public with out feeling like a gaint yellow-headed ass! 

It has taken me well over a year to gorw my hair long (which I really like!) and I so so SO do not want to have to get it chopped off and start all over!  So anyone who reads this who may have ANY suffestions as to how I should salvage my hair . . .please, let me know!

And here all along i’ve complained about my hair . . .I hate my curly hair . . .I hate how it get’s frizzy . . .I hate my natural color . . .WAAAAAAAH!  I miss my real hair!

Why You Should NEVER DIY Your Own Hair

Amber and I had this genious idiotic idea last night to go blonde.  I was already a dark blonde, but this was going to be a lot LOT lighter.  We started with Amber’s hair because her’s was so much darker than mine, and right off the bat it wasn’t looking good for her. 

Mine seemed like it was going to lighten nicely, and although I was a little unsure of the color, I figured I could get used to it.  I have, after all, had brown, red, green (accidentally) purple, blue and every shade in between over the past 12 years. 

I debagged my hair and nearly cried before even rinsing it.  It was yellow, gold, and my roots were still brown.  After rinsing it, it was clear that I was going to be dying it again today.  (I am now deeply frightened that my hair is all going to fall out while I’m brushing it)

When we checked Amber’s hair I didn’t know if I should laugh or burst into tears for her.  Her hair had turned different shades of orange with white roots and brown splotches.  At one point, I was litterally rolling on the floor laughing because we had done this to ourselves!  (Sorry about that, Amber)

I dyed my hair today, praying to all that is good in the world that it would turn brown and not fall out.  Sadly, it is a light reddish color.  Still better than Barbie yellow, I guess.

As for Amber, after I constructed her a bandana so that she could actually leave my house, she began contemplating shaving her head.  I think her dye job will need professional help. 

After all this self-induced hair misery, Amber and I have vowed NEVER to dye our hair again once this whole fiasco is finally fixed and we no longer look like Bozo the Clown’s sidekicks.

Mel’s Tips for Hair Dying:

• do not , I repeat DO NOT buy and at home bleaching kit such as Born Blonde.  No good can come of it.
• Dying your hair on a whim is a stupid thing to do! 
• if you’ve never dyed your own hair before, don’t.  Get it done professionally.
• When you do mess up your to the point of no return, remember this: Walmart sells bandanas for $1 each. 

I am my Father

I came to a terrible realization this week:  I have become my father.  Not entirely, not yet anyway.

I was going to bed and Mark was going to stay up for a while.  I shut off the tv, shut off the lamp, closed and locked the front door and locked the garage.  Then it hit me like a ton of bricks:  I was doing the things that my dad did that always drove my mom crazy.  Every night he would go to bed before my mom, and EVERy night he would close the front door, shut the windows and turn off the lamp.  It could be 90 degrees outside and he would shut the windows on my mom.  This drove her nuts!  And now I was doing it to my husband. 

I stood at the top of the stairs and looked at Mark.  “I’ve turned into my dad.”  I said.  I put his hand on my shoulder, looked at me sadly and said, “I know.”

Not Only In America

Apparently Americans aren’t the only ones who think beauty is far more important than anything else.  And whats worse is the message it sends our children. 

Olympic Lip-Synch Scandal Uncovered

By Stephen M. Silverman

Lin Miaoke (left, who provided the face) and Yang Peiyi (who provided the voice) Photo by: Zhou Liang / Xinhua / AP

Seeking someone “flawless in image,” Chinese officials used a lip-synching child to mouth the country’s anthem at the Olympic opening ceremonies instead of the real singer.

Speaking to local radio, Beijing-based musical director of the ceremony, Chen Qigang, revealed that Lin Miaoke, the 9-year-old girl in the red dress with the pigtails seen on TV singing “Hymn to the Motherland,” was, in fact, only a ghost voice.

The real voice, he said, belonged to 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. Though her voice was perfect, apparently her front teeth were not.

“The main consideration was the national interest. The child on the screen should be flawless in image, in her internal feelings and in her expression,” says Chen.

The musical director says it was a “last-minute decision, a choice we had to make” to swap out the singer.

“Our rehearsals had already been vetted several times – they were all very strict,” he says. “When we had the dress rehearsals, there were spectators from various divisions, including above all a member of the politburo who gave us his verdict: we had to make the swap.”

Despite her young age, Yang Peiyi is said to have been a good sport about the situation, reputedly declaring, “I am proud to have been chosen to sing at all.”

Now what is this telling the world’s children?  If you don’t have a perfect image, you aren’t good enough.  That poor little girl, they make it out like she was ok with the whole thing. . . and maybe she was.  But we as people with a heart and some sort of conscience should not be ok with it!  I would be, in a word, PISSED if someone pulled that with my kid!  If you don’t want the wholekid, then you can’t pick and choose which parts you like, in this case they chose her voice and just left the rest of her by the curb! 

I Think I’ve Lost It

Being a huge fan of the show Friends (and owning all 10 seasons) I get into a Friends kick where I watch them in sequence all over again.  Especially right now, since there has been nothing good on tv!  You may think it’s dumb, but I could watch that show a million times and still crack up laughing!

So I hit season 8, the one where Rachel is pregnant, and I started getting a little bummed.  By the time I hit the two part episode where Rachel goes into labor and has the baby, I was full-on bawling.  How sad does that make me?  (and I don’t mean boo-hoo sad, I mean lame sad)

This happened, of course, the same day that all I heard at work was three pregnant women share preggo-tales and talk baby.  And the day after I spoke with a pregnant friend who talked preggo through the entire conversation.  I vowed today to Amber that when (IF) I finally become pregnant I WILL NOT be one of those women who turns into a pregnancy-obsessed-mom-to-be and can only talk nursery decor, baby names and labor.  And if I do, Amber is allowed to slap me.

So now, after crying through Rachel giving birth, I have come to discover that I have deffinatly lost my marbles in the past 20-some months of TTC and may very well land myself in the looney bin.  That, or drive all my friends to disown me for being so caught up in my need to have another child and be forced to live a life of solitude, thus spoiling my only child rotten and having him resent me for never leaving him alone.

SOOOOOOOBBBBBBBB!  Whiiiiiiimmmmpppppeeeerrrrr!

Blast From the Past: How I Met Your Father

In a new bloggeriffic storyline, I will randomly chronical pages from my past to give you, my lovely readers, a little insight to who the Bigmouthmom REALLY is.  So here is my first blast!

How the Bigmouth Met Her Mate

In April of 2004 I was invited on an all expense payed trip to steamy Tucson, Arizona to visit a friend I hadn’t seen in over a year.  He payed for my plane ticket and put me up in his home for two weeks of Tucson-style fun.

Naturally, I accepted the gracious offer.  I packed my bags, kissed my boyfriend goodbye and was off to AZ!  My first night there I accompanied my friend and his Air Force buddies to a local bowling alley for beers and bowling.  I am not a fan of bowling as I suck terribly.  I was extremely tired after an entire day of flying, airport food and layovers, hence I was pretty bitchy.

One of the people at the bowling extravaganza was a handsome young man (whose name escapes me, so we’ll call him Bill)  Bill and I spent a large portion of the night flirting.  He found it quite impressive that this little lady from WI could drink more beer than all the Air Force men combined!  (that’s how we WI chicks do it!)  After an hour or so of mindless boozing, another attractive young man (Mark) arrived.   He seemed to fancy me and attempted many time to start up a conversation.  Alas,  was being a bitch and wouldn’t give him the time of day.  I was too busy flirting with Bill.

Several of the bowlers headed back to the house for a movie and more beer, Bill and Mark included.  It was getting late and I was so jet lagged and tired that I decided to retire for the night.  I kissed my good friend who’d flown me out goodnight, and went to bed.  (I was sharing his bed while visiting, but we were JUST friends!)  Mark assumed that this meant we were together, and decided since I’d been less than wonderful to him, that he’d stop trying to get to know me.

The next day we threw a large party complete with beer and brats. (that’s right, WI style!)  To my recollection, I started drinking around noon, so I was pretty hammered for the duration of the party.  At one point, i asked to call the “cute guy that I didn’t talk to from the bowling alley”.  I called Mark and told him that he “had a cute butt” and asked him to come to the party.  I’m pretty sure he was a taken aback by the fact that I had called and invited him.  After an hour or so, he showed up.

I don’t remember everything that went on after than, but at some point he and I headed down to the neighborhood pool and jumped in fully clothed.  When we came back to the party, people saw a whole new Mel.  I was sitting on his lap, flirting and laughing and paying very little attention to the other people at the party.  Someone grabbed my camera and managed to record on film our first kiss.

Now I’m sure you’re all thinking that I was a terrible person for cheating on my wonderful boyfriend back home.  And you are right, I was.  Having never EVER cheated on ANYONE (and having been cheated on many times) I felt awful!  But there was just something about this AZ man that made me feel a way I’d never experienced before.

Mark and I were nearly inseparable for the rest of my trip.  I called my mom and told her i had met the man I was going to marry.  She laughed and said “What about Curt?”  I told her that I felt bad about Curt, but that I had fallen in love with Mark.  She laughed again and told me that there was no way I could be in love after just meeting this man.  She was wrong.

The day I flew home, I think I cried all the way to Colorado.  I felt that I would never see Mark again and that I was probably missing out on having a wonderful relationship with a very special person.  But I continued to date Curt, thinking there was no possible way Mark and I could be together.  (meanwhile, talking to Mark 2 or 3 time a day)

It wasn’t until June, when I decided to move to Tucson to be with Mark, that I finally told Curt what had been going on.  He was pissed!  I can’t say i blame him, he was a really great guy . . .but he wasn’t Mark.  Mark bought a one was ticket to WI, stayed here for a week to meet all my friends and family, and then we hopped in my tiny 2 door car (giant dog and all) and embarked on a 3 day adventure to AZ.

Four months of living in HELL , also known as Tucson, AZ, and I was back in my little car heading home to WI.  I had become terribly homesick.  And had fallen out of friendship with the people we’d been living with due to there being five of us and two large dogs in a small 3 bedroom house.

Two weeks after I returned home, Mark got a transfer at work and was here in WI with me.  And we’ve lived happily ever after!

The Anti-Fat: Sabotage!

I’ve been doing so good at watching what I eat and counting calories.  It’s amazing how much easier it is to ear right when you know how many calories you are allowed each day!  I’ve been such a good girl . . .unil today.

Allen has been begging for WEEKS to go to “Wuchee Cheese” (Chuck E Cheese) and I kept telling him we would go, and then put it off.  Last night when we put him to bed he looked at me and said “We better go Wuchee Cheese when I just wake up”.  How could I delay any longer?

We NEVER eat at CEC because it’s very overpriced and kinda nasty.  Allen and I got there at 11(we were the ONLY ones there!) and played games for a while, but we were both straving!  I could actually hear Allen’s tummy grumbling!  (mine too!)  so I gave in and overpayed for nasty pizza.  When the pizza was ready, i was dang hungry that I scarfed down 5 pieces!  Gag!

Of course, now I feel like vomitting.  If you’ve ever had pizza at CEC, you can sympathize with me.  Take under cooked bread dough, smear ketchup on it, toss on some cheese and peperoni and nuke it in the microwave for about 2 minutes.  That’s CEC pizza.

Alas, I inhailed it in all it’s nastiness and now am left with negative calories for today, and possibly tomorrow!  Guess I’ll just call today my Anti-Fat Day Off!