Sixteen months after giving birth, I became a parent

After months of raising FunnyKid, middle-of-the-night feedings, kisses for bumped foreheads and more diaper changes than I can count, what finally earned me the title of parent? This.


The Pretend Husband and I had been patting ourselves on the back that we had finished Christmas shopping for FunnyKid and hadn't gone overboard. We had discussed getting him a Cozy Coupe, but figured we could get it for his birthday next summer. Then, while picking up some groceries at a warehouse club the other night, we spotted it. And it was cheaper than we had seen it anywhere else. And, despite my fears that having one more big gift under the tree will turn my sweet boy into a spoiled brat, we bought it.

And then I tried to assemble it. Pulling the large plastic pieces out of the box at 10 p.m., I thought, "how hard can this be?" Ha! Picture me two hours later, sweating and cursing because I'm still not finished and it's impossible to tell from the drawings which part is pictured and how does this thing fit? I had to view on-line video instructions and pull out a drill in order to get most of the way done.

It was after midnight, and long after the PH had gone to bed, when I got to the part of the instructions where you need two people to finish the stupid thing. That's when I abandoned the project and went to bed, knowing I still have a couple of days to get it done.

FunnyKid is going to LOVE the cozy coupe and I know that seeing the joy on his face is going to erase any dark memories I have of putting the stupid thing together, but remind me next year to start assembling his gifts well before Christmas Eve because they are never as easy to assemble as they look. Oh, and when you remind me, call me "Mom." I've earned it.

Yes, you got it down. No, you did not do it intelligently.

One of the caveats that came with the house and property we bought from my dad is the large number of trees that my dad planted more than 30 years ago that have since taken over the yard. They are mostly huge, huge, huge evergreen trees (you know the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center each year? these are too big to qualify...)

While we're not huge fans of the trees that ring the property, there are two in particular that have been the bain of our existence because one is planted in the center of the front yard (blocking the house) and the other is planted in the center of the backyard (blocking the yard from the house). The Pretend Husband and I have always talked about getting them taken down in both a "wouldn't it be nice if we had some extra money and could hire a tree service?" kind of way (me) and a "I bet I could get a couple of buddies over here and take them down" kind of way (him).

While I tend to plot and plan, the PH can be a mite more impulsive, as evidenced by the phone call I got on a Friday afternoon announcing that he and kat's lil bro had been text messaging and decided they were going to take down the tree in the front yard. When I couldn't convince the PH it might not be a good idea to undertake such a big project without any idea how to even begin, I pulled lil bro aside and said, "I expect you to be the voice of reason. If you guys don't know how to do this without sending the tree into the house, don't go through with it." His response was, "How hard can it be?"

Which is how, within minutes, my brother was cutting a notch on one side of the tree while the PH stayed out of the way (I think he figured, if he didn't physically handle the chainsaw, he wouldn't be responsible for the tree crashing into the second floor of our house). So, the tree was notched on the side the guys wanted it to fall on, the wood was cleared out of the notch and... nothing happened. The tree didn't move.

My brother continued cutting until the chainsaw got stuck and turned off, which is when... we heard a crack... and the tree started moving... toward me, who was standing in front of our garage (so, it didn't fall directly toward the house at least, but still not in the direction it was supposed to go).

I ran, kat's lil bro ran from where he was at the base of the tree and the PH stood out of range staring in a horrified manner as the tree fell-- in the exact opposite direction from where the guys had planned for it to fall.

Luckily, it missed everything (our house, the garage, my dad's cannons, cars passing by the road, Molly and Casey) except two branches of another nearby tree. I spent the rest of the night saying to the PH, "You guys are soooo lucky. So lucky." And he responded, "It wasn't luck." To which I would reply, "It wasn't luck? Then what was it? Because it sure wasn't skill!"

Yes, I'm grateful for the new and improved view from our front door. No, I will not be letting the PH, kat's lil bro and their mighty chainsaw near the tree in the backyard. Some things-- like someone who knows how to send a tree in the direction it's intended-- are worth paying for.

I was wearing slippers and I'm not pregnant, but I had the "toiling over a hot stove" part downpat

I am a lot of things, but I am not a cook. I've gotten better over the years (the Pretend Husband at least comes home to some chicken nuggets in the oven every once in awhile), but it's not my "thing."

Which is why it was huge that I made the PH not one, not two, but three meals (and three desserts) for his birthday last week. He put a moratorium on gifts for his birthday (that I am praying will be lifted by mine...) so it was the only way I could think of to make his birthday stand out.

I started the night before by getting home at 11 p.m. after dinner out with the Pretend In-Laws (and perhaps a spontaneous game of Setback with SJ and j) and immediately starting to bake potatoes. Which led to my getting up an hour early the next morning to finish breakfast, which was basically twice baked potatoes with bacon and a fried egg in the middle. They were good (but maybe a bit undercooked, which may have led to the PH's Birthday Morning O' Fun In The Bathroom, but it's the thought that counts, right?)

Then the PH went off to work with a bagged lunch of two angus roast beef sandwiches (the deli counter guy gave me the special angus roast beef at the price of the regular stuff... oh yeah, I've still got it!), his favorite Doritos and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

I spent the next eighty jillion hours cooking so when the PH arrived home from work (or, more accurately, about two hours after he arrived home from work...) he sat down to a dinner of turkey meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes. Which was followed by peanut butter pie, two kinds of cupcakes and a chocolate and vanilla checkerboard cake.

Of course, he's been getting nothing but chicken nuggets and canned soup from me since, but at least he has the memory of the day KAT cooked her butt off to sustain him until his next birthday.

SJ's birthday "if only..."

Oh SJ, what's with having your birthday fall on a Tuesday (and during my busiest week at work)? What's with that? If only you could have scheduled it for a weekend or something, I could have made you something decadent to celebrate, like this:

(grasshopper bars: creme de menthe, chocolate and sinful deliciousness)

And I wouldn't have given them to you in a glass dish with the knife still in it. No, I would have wrapped them up nicely, like this:

And, if I had the time like I usually have on the weekends, I could have bought a funny card, written something funny in it and put it with the grasshopper bars, like this:

And then you could have put them into your fridge to keep cold until you ready to eat them, which would look sort of like this:

No, wait. Actually, it would look exactly like that. Or, if you stepped back, like this:

Check your fridge when you get home, SJ. Because no one should be without alcohol and chocolate on their special day. Happy Birthday, my friend! Hope it's a good one.

It distracted them from continuously hinting about us providing them grandchildren...

The Pretend Husband and I joined forces this weekend to host the family holiday dinner. We cleaned, we moved tables around, we shopped for food, we cleaned some more, we set tables, we cooked... it was a beautiful thing (and fun and tiring, too). The one thing we hadn't counted on-- and which will be done better-- is the timing of the meal and the draw of the kitchen.

I was in charge of the mashed potatoes and had planned to have them made before anyone arrived, but the PH convinced me it would be better to time the cooking of the potatoes so I mashed them just before dinner and they stayed hot. We also thought the island in the kitchen would be the perfect place to lay out the appetizers. Which is how I ended up with an audience as I finished making the mashed potatoes-- an uncle even commented that it was like a cooking show as everyone stood around and watched me with the potatoes and the PH carve up the turkey and the ham.

And it wasn't so bad until I stirred the pan of corn very vigorously, sending some flying across the counter and onto the floor. The "audience" all started talking at once, ribbing me for my lack of culinary skill. And the PH started yelling at me because-- and I'm not even sure how he made this leap in logic-- he thought I had turned the stove up too high and the corn had started popping. Next year: potatoes made in advance and appetizers laid out in any room other than the kitchen.

Another amusing thing was the Pretend In-laws and Pretend Aunt and Uncles playing Wii after dinner for more than three hours. They went off into the other room to play that while the PH, his sister and I sat and talked without having to be interrupted by the "kids" and their video games. Normally, we would have cut them off before that but they were playing so nicely together and it gave us adults a chance to socialize without them bugging us every five minutes to ask about dessert.

Merry Christmas with love and a crapload of frosting...

Amish Friendship Struggles.

Note: We were super bloggers yesterday and posted not once, but TWICE. check it, dudes. So you know. In case you missed our discussion re: bad Christmas carols and changing sheets, scroll down, please, and let us know your thoughts.

i have one of those breads at home. you know the kind. the kind that lives in a plastic bag in dough form and smells like wine, but is, in fact, yeasty dough? it's like chain-pastry. you get one, you add stuff randomly over 10 days, and then you give it to four of your frenemies?

that one.

and technically i was supposed to bake it yesterday. but i didn't have the bags required to break it down. so i'm going to bake it on day 11. do you think that's okay?

i bet it is. and although i know how yummy this bread is, i'm not at all tempted to keep another starter for myself, because i know this means you get suckered into baking bread every 10 days.

damned tricky amish.

sj: oversharing since 2005.

i have a list of confessions for you today. because it's rainy and i am tired and stayed up until 11:30 last night making cupcakes for work (but dude. they came out *perfectly*. like little hostess cupcakes, and i mastered the filling without using an airgun.)

and they're not the juiciest confessions, but they are, in essence, little pieces of me that i'm sharing with you, because you got here, so you must care, right? wait. where are you going? come on now. i've already shared with you too much - like the time i nearly went braless, or the time i went pantyless?

i'm going to share even *more* now. although perhaps nothing as embarrassing as those little gems.

so. now for the following little known facts about me. there's not much more to know about me after this list, and my profile, however. so i realize i run the risk of running out of things to blog about. good thing i keep hurting myself.

1) we all know i love animals. i had a sheep as a pet, and several bunnies, and now a dog. but my sensitivity may perhaps be too much. i once had to pull over on the side of the road after hitting a bird. i cried. seriously. ask my friend bill, who i was on the phone with at the time. (and who thinks i am, justifiably, a freak.

2) i played this game as a child where i really thought that i could telepathically communicate with birds. srg knows all about this. she was totally in my game. her name was bunny, and mine was trixie. these were the nicknames given to us by our second grade class photographer (you know? the dude that takes the pictures.)

3) i had a huge crush - huge - on one of my friends' ex-boyfriends. but shh. i'll never tell you who or which one or any other details. i just had to share. he wasn't my type in *any* aspect, but still. i was in love with him. (and now? i have no idea what i was thinking. but there was a time when i would have made some very bad decisions....)

4) the first concert i ever saw was Barry Manilow. and i still dig that shizzle. i love him. and i'd go see him again.

5) when i'm really, really trashed, i sometimes speak with a bad British accent. Sorry, Molly. i mean no disrespect to your country.

6) i own the Debbie Gibson greatest hits CD. and secretly listen to it all the time. and i know every single word to Foolish Beat.

so go ahead. get your guilty secrets out there. you know you want to.

current itunes song: "fair" by remy zero

When Home Depot and Williams-Sonoma collide...

so i took yet another break from this weekend where i'm supposed to be doing non-stop work, and went to see my parents with some cupcakes (as pictured previously). they came out fantastic, except that i haven't mastered the filling part.

i was lamenting this to my parents. i told them i thought my problem was that i needed to use the tip with the bigger opening.

my dad's reaction was: i needed power tools.

to be exact, a pneumatic caulking gun.

"dad, my pastry filler is fine, it's just that the hole was too small for the kind of pressure i needed... really."

but a minute or two later, Dad comes in with an air-compressor enabled caulking gun. and mom was digging out a variety of pastry tips. and by variety, i mean, she had everything from a set of wilton metal tips, to the plastic tips from her pampered chef decorator to a host of plastic tips that i've never seen before.

this, folks, was a mission. i'm just sorry i didn't have my digital camera.

a few minutes later, we were experimenting with some canned frosting (and when we determined there wasn't enough to really test our caulk-gun-turned-pastry-tool, we added sour cream.) we added a plastic bag, and then we added some tips. and then we took a plate outside to the garage. and hooked our baking tool up to an air compressor.

because that's how we roll.

so while i held out the plate, my dad tried his hand with the tool and a ruffling tip. dad did a pretty good job making some nice ribbons. (i should mention that this whole time, j was hiding behind me, sure that someone was getting coated with sour cream frosting.)

so we'll see how this goes. my plan is to go hang out with my dad some night this week with some cupcakes and some filling.

and maybe some safety goggles.

current itunes song: "you're aging well" by dar williams