CarRide Chronicles - The Stank

So I was at the pediatrician's office (see recent coxsackie/ear infection drama).  Ben had been de-diapered, weighed by the nurse, quickly RE-diapered, and deemed ready to see the doctor.
(At that point,  it was the waiting game - how long can you keep a toddler entertained for with medical equipment??)

We're playing with those wooden popsicle sticks they gag you with, when I fart...

And holy something-died:
It really stank... =\


And then, of course, seconds later the doctor entered the room.

CHEESUS that's bad - I wonder if she can smell it?!
 
About 30 seconds later, while the doctor was checking a screaming Ben's ears, she asked him in the baby voice, "did you do a poopy? or just poot?  Cuz boy that stinks!"



I grasped for it like a life-saver:

"Oh yea, I just changed a poopy diaper... it's rank huh?!"

Copy Kat!

I am so jealous of the success this gal has had on her What's Growing Wednesdays, I've decided to do a one-time What's Growing Wednesday myself!



Because I'm so stinkin' proud of our cute little pumpkin! 
E lovingly cultivated the plants, and unfortunately has to battle that white you see in the picture - a "dry mildew" he discovered a few nights ago... hopefully we make it to a full-crop this fall!

And a quick Wardrobe Wednesday:

All the pictures I post for WW are best approximations I can find online as I either have had it so long I can't remember where I got it (cardigan!) or it came from a thrift store somewhere (green skirt!)...

And to show you how close I get when I do these approximations, an actual live WardrobeWednesday gratuitous work-bathroom shot:

P.S. apparently fabric rosettes make my boobs look big.  Note to self!

Texas, oh Texas!

Seriously, there's this big song that starts with "Texas, our Texas - all hail the mighty State!"

*really.  The lyrics page I found has "State" capitalized all proper-noun-like... T'Aint No Joke!


So yea, we flew down to the state known as it's Own Country on my birthday the first week of August - no better birthday present than drinking margaritas with your Momma!!!

We had an ass-early flight (ok we've had worse, but having to get Ben up over an hour earlier than normal, I just knew, was going to make the day interesting!) from Newark to Dallas.  We had a bitch-of-a-non-grandma sitting in front of us that, when Ben let out the ONE and ONLY seat kick of the entire flight, turned around and glared at us.  To which E responded, "sorry, we're doing our BEST!"
(but really - it's not like he's leg-pressing 100lbs here to be a strong seat-kicker...)
Anyways - after the glaring not-a-grandma, we were lavished with praise upon deplaning at DFW with the "OMG I didn't even know there was a baby on the plan!" comments and the "He was sooooo good!" platitudes...
(see third pic - he slept, LIKE A BABY hee hee - for almost 1.5 hours!)
Then, with a quick 21-minute flight from DFW to Waco, we were ready to get our drink on... AND SWIM!

This was Ben hanging out in the floating cooler I bought my parents for Xmas... he loved it!

(E has all the pictures on his phone of Ben in his actual little turtle float...)

It was great - the pool was warm enough (high 80's) that Ben could hang out with us for a lot longer than at NJ-grandma's pool (which has been hanging around the low 70's - brrr!)

Other highlights of the trip were:
Shopping at Spice (this awesome warehouse of a store with tons of different vendor booths, one being Blue Flamingo where I found the cutest tribal-print shorts, geometric-print leggings, and adorable navy-white striped nautical dress... Also, um - flower earrings and two earring-cuffs from a booth where everything (jewelry) was 3 for $5.  THREE for FIVE DOLLARS!!!!!
(I wonder now, how did I stop at just three?!)

A good 'ole Southern Shrimp Boil - and if you're saying it correctly, "Boil" is all one syllable.  Like Bowl. =P

Instructions are like, super easy:
Boil Water.
Add spice-packet (you can buy at grocery store!)
and then every 5 minutes or so, start adding the above ingredients! (potatoes, corn, sausage, onions,, lemon, shrimp and/or CRAWFISH!)

 Yup, you read that right - we all (Ben included!) had our first taste of Crawfish!

Once everything is all cooked, it's gets strained and then dumped onto a table from which everyone prepares their plates:

"Noooo please don't eat me!"

This is how babies stay cool in Texas... And they're "nekkid" - not "nayked"

Another highlight was Ben's first real haircut from Grandma (and "real" means that Mommy didn't just snip-snip here and there, leaving crooked hair lines and uneven bald spots above ears...)

Overall, he loved Texas:

BigTop Birthday (Part II)

ok, enough of this commenting and fun stuff about where I bought what, or how drunk I got making that...
Without further ado, Benjamin's Bigtop Bash:

CarRide Chronicles

I was jamming along to Mirrors by JT (aka the BoyBand king) the other day.

I waited to make the left turn en route to daycare drop off, when I was waved through by some random hunky guy in a sedan, probably in his later 30's.

And then I realized that if I'd passed the same guy, same age but 10 years ago, younger-me would have thought that he's TOO OLD.

Attractive, but too old. (like, silver fox old.)

Then I remembered being young and having crushes on older celebrities (Cher's adorable older brother! the creepy but still-so-sexy stalker! the heroic astronaut!)and thinking, no way in real life (real life?! seriously lol) would he want someone as young as me!

Of course, a few years' difference in your teens makes a MUCH bigger difference than in your twenties, even LESS in your thirties... and by your forties - what age gap?!

Anyways - then the song changed and I started serenading Ben with "Oooooh Oh OOOOOh! You don't know you're beau-ti-fuuuuul!"

And I realized that One Direction is my Nsync - older women were like, aw they're cute! but too young!

And now I'm one of those women going, "Harry Styles? He's cute, just a leeeeee-ttle too YOUNG though!"




**10 minutes later (of avoiding-work at work...)
It's even worse.

Pierce Brosnan has a son. (as do a number of other actors - well duh K, lots of people have sons - I mean, actors that are delish and so are their sons... their OLD-to-young-K sons...)

WHO IS 30 YEARS OLD...

While I have slight issues (as he of Mrs. Doubtfire fame used to be a SilverFox Crush!) I will gladly switch my admirations to his son!

YUMMY!

Cock-WHAT?!

Welp - it happened.

The first communicable disease at Ben's daycare.

We got the email Saturday morning: two kids had COXSACKIE.  (aka HandFoot&Mouth Disease)

My SIL was over that morning as we were getting ready to take Ben shopping and to lunch - and E begins a nuclear-level-meltdown:

"god DAMMIT.  SHIT.  I wonder who it is!!"

(proceeded to respond to the daycare provider's email - under my email! - demanding asking to know if either of them were in Ben's class...)

We quickly got a response that Yes, one of the kids was from Ben's class.  (I also felt I had to apologize and make clear that E had sent the borderline nasty email when the owner kept saying how bad she felt...)

When I began to hypothesize out loud that it was siblings at the daycare (one of Ben's classmates has an older brother) the nuclear meltdown went even higher:

"OH GOD DAMMIT - Ms. [Teacher] showed me a video of [Timmy] feeding Ben by hand! OH DAMMIT!"

I mean - the guy acted like Ben had been exposed to Ebola...

So, we watched him all weekend - nary a symptom sprouted.



Except then, today I got a call at work.  (First of all, I am just glad that the first line out of their mouths when they call me at work is, "Ben is ok!")

But his eyes were oozing.

He had a slight eye booger problem and just seemed "off."  She wondered if maybe it was pink-eye developing? And was that a symptom of coxsackie??


GREAT.

So after a quick pow-wow with E, we arranged that I would pick up and bring infectious baby Ben to the doctor, and he would take off of work tomorrow to stay home with him.

Ben and I sat in the waiting room (on the quarantined "sick visit" side) and I admonished him, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING! you'll give everyone coxsackie!!

(if you're wondering how the hell to pronounce that, it's "cock-sackie."  But say it fast, so no one can quite tell exactly what you're saying... or just call it "HandFoot&Mouth Disease" and make it easier on everyone...)

Well quick visit (but long wait) later, Ben does not have coxsackie.

He has a double ear infection...

The Birthday Post

I think that a photographic narrative of the day would best suffice Mr. Benjamin's BigTop Birthday Bash...




Beginning with the fabulous invitations...


by tinyprints
45 invites
$67.69
(included tax + S&H)




















And you will all remember the tedious planning and crafting that went into it...
cleaned-out beer bottles (free after I bought and drank the beer!)
wrapped in striped paper (from Michaels - $0.25/sheet)


 (just a SNAPSHOT of what went on in the MONTHS leading up to the big day...)

used baby-food jars (free after Ben ate the food!) wrapped in burlap stuff (? lol) and curled ribbon

They became center pieces:

(homemade pinwheels, again from Michael's paper)

Photobooth props from felt and card stock and baking stick thingies from Michaels.

Wooden plates from Michaels (oh, say $1 each, $10 for the large heavy BigTop arrow) painted with

Acrylic paint (again Michaels - I basically made weekly trips...) maybe $8

Felt sheets from Michaels ($0.40 each) 

And I sat, while probably watching some trashy reality TV, and proceeded to TRACE AND CUT AND HOT GLUE all them bitches. 

Hot glue is MOTHER F*CKING HOT.

By the day before his party, my dining room table (heck the whole entire room) was covered in birthday paraphernalia.*

(*wow, spelled that correctly on the first go!!)


There was even a mini crisis when I noticed a few ants on the bags and bags (and bags) of candy for the next day's candy bar!!

None made it inSIDE the candy wrappers, and my adopted SIL's were great assistants helping me de-Ant...

















All that was left the night before was to bake cupcakes and his smash cake*:

(I got the idea for his smash cake (sprinkles around a "1") from Parenting magazine...
The popcorn cupcakes pretty much came from here.)

*Well, bake and hang yards and yards and yards of fabric in our garage circus tent! (don't kill me, I'm not sure where the pictures are of the fabulous garage-to-tent transformation, hopefully you can get the idea of it from other photos' backgrounds...)

We woke up bright and early on D-day, ready to finish setting up...

(Part II to follow, because HOLY PHOTO-OVERLOAD!)