He's a big boy now....

The really sad thing is, I almost cried when BabyDaddy got his "big-boy bed" all fixed up. Of course, the Muffin thinks it's simply the grandest thing...

It's pretty much an art.

He started to cry for us to put him back in the crib, so he could show us his skills.

Bebe C' (aka Houdini)

I discovered his new trick -- needless to say, he now has a big-boy bed.

Chuck E. Cheese is a dirty fraud...

I was talking to another young mama yesterday about the hardships of working mothers. I feel like I miss out on so much. Especially now -- I feel like the bebe’ (who is not really a bebe’ anymore – I’ve got to come up with a new name…) is learning at warp speed. It seems that some times, just in the span of eight hours, he has totally changed. The other day, I came home from work, kicked off my heels, and heard a little voice say “I gun geeeeeeeeeeeeeshhhhuuuuuuuu!!!!” This was followed by hysterical laughter as the Muffin attacked my shins. I looked at BabyDaddy. “What did he just say?” BD just smiled, and with a shrug said, “He said ‘I’m gonna get you’. He learned that today.” Holy cow! My little man has a three-word phrase!! It’s amazing to me how fast he processes things. At the risk of being labeled an Attention Whore, (which I am), I was working on the Muffin's baby book yesterday, and I made a list of all the words he can say. I stopped at 103. :) He can also identify four shapes, (circle, triangle, square, and heart), three colors, (green, blue, red), and can spell his name on command. "Cee-AAyyy-Deee-EEEeee-NNNNNnnn". (Mommy: What does that spell buddy? Muffin: MEEEEEeeeee!!)

Last night we went to Chuck E. Cheese --I know I swore I’d never return, but yesterday a commercial came on Noggin’ for the place, and the Muffin started jumping up and down and screaming “Chu Cheeeeeee!! Chu Cheeeeee!”, and then he grabbed my hand and took me to the door. How do you resist that? So, BD and I loaded up and headed downtown. It actually wasn’t too crowded, so we had a good time. We were getting ready to go, and I told the Muffin we had to go home now. He ran to the nearest poster of Chuck E. Cheese and began to wave. “Bye-Bye Chuuu Cheeeee!” I love it. I just plain stinking love it. However, what I did NOT love, was that 482 tickets buys you either a Spider Ring or a Pixie Stick. Give me a break! Dirty old rat…

We have air by the way. That very same day last weekend, my Uncle-in-Law (I guess that’s right) sent one of his guys over to fix it. Thank God it was only the constructor/constrictor/something or other, and not the more expensive compressor/compactor/something or other. It ended up costing us more for the service call than the actual part, but, believe me, I was NOT complaining. It could have been a lot worse -- At that point I was just happy to feel cool air blowing on my face, and even more happy not to be writing a check with multiple zeros.

H.O.T.

My house hates me. If you'll recall, it wasn't so long ago that my family and I were residents of the local Best Western -- An insanely long 3 1/2 week "vacation" due to a flood of epic proportions in my guest bath. Yesterday, in a cosmic "up yours", my air conditioner decided to croak. In the middle of one of the hottest weeks of the summer. And on a weekend. In a fit of rage, I almost broke my toe kicking the crap out of the stupid unit. In addition to the heat, the Muffin would chose last evening to begin a non-violent, but very verbal sleep strike. Beautiful. Just completely freaking lovely. As I crooned the lullaby from Dumbo (Remember "Baby Mine"? It's the only thing that will calm him down usually.), rivulets of sweat rolled down the small of my back and trickled through my hair. Finally, when I realized all my attempts were futile, I let him down to cry and roll on the floor in peace. BD was hiding in the garage, playing with his dead animals, when I steamed through the door. "Must. Have. Air. Immediately." I fumed. I sent him off to Wal-Mart to pick up a window unit. I must have called him at least three times in the 20 minutes he was gone. "Are you there yet? Just pulling in? Okay, talk to you later..." *** "What aisle are you in? Do you have one in the cart yet? Bye." ***** "Where are you now? Are you close to home?!" Finally, he arrived -- within 10 minutes we had blessed, icy cool air. But, it's just a one-room unit, so the rest of the house has turned into a clam bake. At least it's been cool this morning -- but I've already looked at weather.com forty times, (furiously willing an unexplainable cold spell), and the afternoon looks like it's going to be a scorcher. Ugh.

Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl (Official Video)

**WARNING** -- Listen to this at least once, and you will be singing the chorus all day. So, if you're planning to go to church tomorrow, or have small children, DO NOT PLAY THIS.

I Kissed a Girl (Not really)

If I didn’t think everyone would believe I was a raging bisexual, I would SO make “I Kissed a Girl” my profile song on MySpace. Unfortunately, it would, so alas, I just have to sing along whenever it’s on the radio. Yes, I know it’s trashy (haven’t we already established that I don’t mind a modest bit of trashiness every now and again?), and yes, I realize that it’s not quite the song an upstanding young mother should enjoy, but it’s so bloody addictive!!! ***lalalala – I kissed a girl and I liked iiiiiitttttt*** I can’t get it out of my head! (Don’t you think for a SECOND that I’m going to let you off the hook – I’m going to YouTube and posting the darn video here just as soon as I’m done with this. Then you can have the stupid thing stuck in your head all day…) I find myself singing it at the most inopportune times – during the offering at church, meetings at work…. The other day I was humming it while waiting for my chicken biscuit at Chick-fil-A, and then caught myself as the cashier gave me my change. “It’s okay,” she said, giving me an empathetic smile, “I get that one stuck in my head all the time too…” Thanks Janine – at least I know we’re in this together!

BD and I are trying to make plans for the weekend. Well, truthfully, I’m trying to make plans for the weekend, and will notify BD of my decision when I reach it. I haven’t seen Mom for weeks and weeks it seems, but we can’t travel to the country, as BD has to work Sunday. Plus, it’s Jesus-Time down there. The annual revival has been going on all week, and will probably continue through the weekend. For those that are a bit rusty on your SCC (Southern Conservative Christian) lingo, a revival is a weeklong smorgasbord of preachin’, singin’, and eatin’. I haven’t heard of any of our churches here in the city having revivals (let me know if you do – maybe my church is just slacking). Trust me, if you’ve never been to one, and by “one”, I do mean the WHOLE revival – every night, the whole week – it’s quite an exhausting event. So, Mom and the gang wouldn’t really be able to hang out much anyhow. All that being said, I really need to clean the house; I’ve actually been pretty decent at keeping everything picked up until the last couple of nights (Big Brother, Last Comic Standing, and So You Think You Can Dance all had their elimination shows), but that can be taken care of Sunday when BD is at work. Lord knows I’ll be bored as crap then….. **Sigh**

**Hands over Eyes** I don't see any files, do you??

How can one person have so much to do, and just not care? I know someone who can. ME! That’s exactly where I was today. I have a stack of files about two feet deep on my desk, (I mean literally -- a coworker and I measured. Isn’t that sad?), and an obscene amount of emails left over from vacation that I still haven’t replied to. (I believe my clients were getting a little desperate. One of the gentlemen I’m working with lives in Jordan, and I got an email from him today that said, and I quote,

“Megan – Please to have you contact me ASAP. Please have best day. I appreciate.
Thank you. Hope hear from you most soon.”

I kid you not. That is verbatim. I love the guy to death, but as you can tell, he gets a bit anxious. The more anxious he gets, the worse his English becomes. It can be pretty comical, as you might guess.

I called home today at lunch and the Muffin was finger painting with ketchup. BabyDaddy is HORRIBLE with discipline, and this somehow always ends up biting ME in the arse. Mommy becomes “the dirty witch who won’t let me eat the green crayon”… When BD is babysitting however, all bets are off. Want to run naked through the house all day? Share your popsicle with the dog? (The nasty one that licks his butt all the time no less…) Prefer to spend your time eating toothpaste? Then BabyDaddy is your man!

Playing in the Ocean for the First Time

The Muffin's fave beach activity was jumping the waves with BD!

I JUST don't understand....

Caden LOVED playing in the sand. He had been watching BD making castles, he just couln't get why he couldn't get a castle to come out of that darn thing!

Monday's are the crulest invention.....

I’m back. And none the happier for it, I’ll assure you. We had the most amazing vacation, and I was truly heartbroken last night before returning to work today. Picture – an un-showered me, half a bottle of a southern vineyard’s finest white, and the whole evening on the couch watching Lifetime movies and sniveling. Unattractive and a bit trashy, yes, but perfectly acceptable given the circumstances I think. BabyDaddy pointed out that I looked like a puppy someone had just beat the royal crap out of. (Leave it to him to come up with such a touching analogy.) Thankfully, he had some kind of dead animal to play with in the garage, (which he has turned into his taxidermy Man Cave – complete with neon bar signs and my deep freeze filled with frozen animal parts) so after putting the bebe’ to sleep, I was left to my own devices most of the night. Fine by me. I looked at our vacation pictures and cried, thought about going back to work, cried some more, looked at my little bottle of beach sand I brought home, wiped some snot, etc.etc. Somehow, I pulled myself together enough to form coherent thoughts and made it in to work today. I had 132 emails to answer, 14 phone messages to return, and no end in sight. Thank God Ames rescued me for a late lunch, and the afternoon went by relatively quickly. Tomorrow, I am working late, (which means the day will feel like it lasts 346 hours instead of the normal 8) because the Muffin has a check-up tomorrow – complete with shots. I always hate those visits. I’ll post his 18 month letter soon.

As for our vacation, did I say it was fabulous? Completely, one hundred percent, this-close-to-perfection? I feel okay falling all over myself because I deserve it. Need I remind you about Hurricane Wilma on my Honeymoon? Or the Anniversary visit to New York and me with the world’s nastiest flu? Hmph. Like I said, I deserve it. And, I’m completely grateful for it. The Muffin gave new meaning to the phrase “party like a rock star”. He put me to shame, which is a little alarming, I think. His favorite phrases from the week were “Beasshh (“beach”) Mama! Beash NOW!” and “NO NAP!” So, what did we do? We partied like rock stars! We played, we ate, we swam, we ate again, we walked the Strip, we swam some more, ate some more, and then, usually around 11pm or 11:30pm, we collapsed. And the bebe’ was awake and raring to go through the lot of it. Did I mention I was sick when I went to work this morning? Yeah, I’m still there a little bit. I’m sure it will be a while before I’m back to normal, unfortunately for those who work near me, as I was in a near state of catatonia today. I expect to be only marginally more useful tomorrow.

Beach Read:

(Very Dark, but very Very good.)

Beach Hubby:

(Don't lie -- even though he has a farmer's tan, he's more than a little hot here.)

Beach Bebe':

Best Beach Moment:

We loved walking on the beach at night looking for shells!

Worst Beach Moment:

Not at all happy to come in the room after leaving the beach. (He rolled around crying to "go bye-bye" for a good 10 minutes every time we came in and shut the door for the night.)

Not that I'm boasting...

But, this time tomorrow, I'll have my toes in the sand and the sun on my face, (well, the parts of my face that aren't covered by my EXTREMELY sophisticated wide-brimmed beach hat -- Sorry Ames, I couldn't resist!) :) I hope you all have a lovely week. Cross your fingers that the Muffin will enjoy himself.

See you in 7 days!

Summer Fun

Other than me saying "Woo-hoo!" an obscene amount of times, (BabyDaddy and I counted six I think), it's a cute video!! :)

Weak of heart, turn away. (This means you Mom) TMI to follow...

I am a wanton hussy. Correction -- I am a wanton ANGRY hussy. Last night, I was lusting after my husband, and I got REJECTED. To hear him talk, or rather, whine most of the time– you would think he hardly got any action at all, so imagine my surprise at the following exchange last night:

Me: **Yawn** Well, I’m headed to bed…

BabyDaddy: (Deeply engrossed in Perfect Dark on Xbox 360) Okay.

Me: Ahem. I’M. GOING. TO. THE BEDROOM.

BD: Yeah, okay. G’night. Love you.

Me: All right, well, do you think you’ll be following sometime soon?

BD: Headshot – yes!! Crap, who the heck is sniping me??!! (frantically waving his controller in the air) Oh, sorry babe, what did you say?

Me: **Rolling Eyes** Are you coming to bed any time soon?

BD: Oh, yeah. I’ll be right in.

********
Determined to wait up for him, I take my book with me and read for a good 45 minutes until I finally hear him shut off the TV. He comes in, brushes his teeth, gives me a chaste peck on the forehead, a “love you Meg”, and then promptly turns over on his side. Excuse me??!!! I clear my throat, thrash about a bit, and then give an enormous huff/sigh. Nothing. Not a darn thing. I roll over and cuddle up to his back. Then, the line that I LEAST expected to hear:

BD: Megs, I’m tired.

That’s it?! I’M TIRED?? I’M FREAKING TIRED??!!! I punched him in the shoulder, told him he wasn’t getting any for the rest of the MONTH if I had anything to do with it, and went to the living room to watch Law and Order reruns. Of course this morning, he sheepishly apologized and tried to make amends, to which I said “No Dice”. Let him just try to live this one down. I do not forget easily mister.