They came in swarms.

We've been attacked by Little People! They've come in by bus, by plane, and by train and have totally taken over our living room with their house and garage. Yes, it was a Little People Christmas for Sam, among other things, many other things. This kid has so many freakin' toys...

The Little People now have their own Big World set out in our living room. (I had to throw in a joke about that stupid show - how could I not? Seriously though, why is that show ok?) If only I wasn't so anal. See, I like for toys to be put away with other similar toys at the end of the day. So when it comes to the dozens of Little People, I want the (female!) pilot and passengers on the plane to go in the plane, the kids and bus driver to be in the wheel chair accessible bus, the little stereotypical family and their cat in their picket fence house, the mustached mechanics and their odd moppy dog to hang out in their garage. But more often than not I have to let these little details go and leave that mechanic in the bed with the mom holding the bottle...

And just a tip: You know you've got real estate on the brain when you look at the Little People house and seriously think, "Oh, well they're doing fine with just one bathroom all the way up on the second floor so maybe we could manage it too..."

All I want for Christmas is...

A BIG NAP. Can I just take a 6 six hour nap? Man, SO tired. My exhaustion is so far the only sign that I am pregnant...well, I guess that's not exactly true. Is it possible that I already look pregnant? Because seriously, my tummy already looks swollen. And it has that sort of sensitive full feeling so that I don't want anything to touch it, including my pants. I know you show earlier with your second but this seems mighty impossible. Maybe I'm carrying a food baby...

Anyway, I've been trying to nap whenever Sam does so that I can FUNCTION, hence my blogging absence. Nap time used to be post and comment time so I'm going to have to come up with some sort of alternate plan for that. That plan may have to go into effect after the holidays though seeing as everything is crazy with getting ready to travel and stuff. I hope you all out there are doing well and if I'm not back before then - Merry Christmas. I hope you all have a great one. Looking forward to seeing pics and video of the kiddies going crazy.

And just let me take a moment to say that I've missed you in my absence. I look forward to being more regular in my reading and writing in the new year because the relationships we have are very important to me. As I've said before, internet friendships are surprisingly real. I speak of you to my husband on a first name basis as I do any of my in person friends, and I think it's great. Starting a blog was one of the best things I have done as a mom, and it is because I have found all of you and your support, your humor, your stories, your comments and emails, they all keep me going. So thank you all for opening your minds to a relationship in which we've never actually met, because our friendship is real be it face to face or not.

Merry Chrismas and Happy New Year.

You Guessed It

Yes, it's true. But who knew that crying during Sesame Street and eating an entire crab dip was such normal behavior? I am pregnant though. It's very, very early, as evidenced by the fact that I am still able to eat crab dip and the very idea of it does not sicken me. On the contrary, when thinking about what I wanted for lunch that day it was clear immediately that that was absolutely the only thing that I wanted and I needed it NOW. When pregnant with Sam I had constant nausea for most of the first trimester. I'm assuming it's just too early for that right now, and I can't remember when it started with Sam. But I'm going on the assumption that it will probably return soon so I'm trying to fill up on everything that I know will disgust me starting any day now and for the next 8 or so months. Among those things I include seafood and chicken. Chicken totally creeped me out when pregnant with Sam. Absolutely no chicken could be anywhere near me for fear I'd see those fleshy strings or, even worse, smell it. The smell was the downfall with the fish too. But I digress...

Sam is going to be a big brother. Some of you may be a little confused since it was not so long ago that I wrote this. And I have to say that even while writing it I was thinking my feelings seemed pretty normal. I was getting a little scared because I knew we were about to do this for real and it wasn't going to just be talk anymore. I think no matter how old Sam is I will always have concerns about him when it comes to having another child. How could I not? It's been just us and that will change. I've often heard of mothers wondering if they can love another child as much as their first and the resounding answer seems to be 'yes.' Things change, but for the better.

Hubby and I talked a lot after that post about my feelings on that matter and his. And so we entered an official state of "not, not trying" to have baby. You know, we weren't specifically not trying...or were specifically not...yeah, you get it. And this past month we just happened to not, not try at a fairly crucial time, although honestly we did not expect anything so quickly; that seemed impossible. Not long after that I had many tantrums over the course of several days that led Hubby to wonder what the hell was wrong with me, and not long after that I wondered what the hell was wrong with me, myself. Then I bought the Early Response, took the test, went out and bought another, and then another just to be sure, and you know the rest of the story.

August. Yeah, you heard me. August. That's when I'm due. I'm going to be that huge pregnant woman sweating and with swollen feet trying to pull off cute baby doll dresses that look more like mumus. I have always given sympathy to any woman I have seen pregnant in the summer and expressed how I could never do it. I probably thought to myself how I'd never let myself have to do it. Hmpf. So much for that. I actually have a friend here that is taking a break from trying to get pregnant to avoid a summer due date. Crazy? Mmmmm, I'm not so sure. And, you know, I thought it was really important to have an August/butt end of summer due date specifically so that I could be increasing in size as the temp rose for maximum uncomfortability. And laboring in 100 degrees certainly does sound nice...

I'm going to kick myself for saying this later but I do wish I felt pregnant in some way. Knowing how I felt physically that first time along with the surprise of how quickly this occurred makes it feel very surreal. I have to keep reminding myself that we are going to have another baby almost because I'm not totally convinced. Like I said though, I'm sure I'll be way more convinced than I want to be very soon.

Sam's going to be a big brother...maybe to a little sister...or a little brother is good too...

And since you all seem to be drooling over crab dip let me go ahead and share that little tidbit with you. It's super easy, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to make it in my feverishly starving state. It's something I remember my mom would make sometimes when people were coming over. I always remember it being served with Triscuits, so that's what I did.


Crazy Pregnant Lady's Craving Crab Dip
You need:
1 package cream cheese
1 can crab
1 can baby shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 bottle cocktail sauce
Worcestershire Sauce, optional (wow, I had no idea that was spelled that way)
Crackers

If you are using Worcestershire, mix the pack of cream cheese with a few teaspoons of the sauce. Spread the mixture in a layer on a large plate. If you skip the sauce just spread the cream cheese on a plate. That's what I did in my mad panic and I didn't really notice a difference in the taste when it was done.

Drain the two cans of seafood and mix together with about 1 bottle of cocktail sauce, depending on how big of a bottle it is. Spread this mixture over the cream cheese. Oh yeah, I think you can also top it with a little lemon juice if you want...I forgot about that...that would have been really good...damn...

Grab box of triscuits or other cracker thing. Submerge in dippy goodness. Stuff face. This recipe is particularly good when the only reason you have the ingredients on hand is because you intend to make the dip for a playgroup you are hosting and instead decide it should be all yours.

Enjoy!

I know, I know

I've been a totally bad blogger lately. I'm bad about posting, bad about commenting. I haven't written a seriously thoughtful post in...I dunno, have any been thoughtful? There was a day when I was all reflective and stuff, and that day seems to have passed. I do have some post ideas in mind for some time soon - a response to the article in Mothering about toy guns and violence, more thoughts on mom cliques and middle school behavior among the best of us, but I'm just not feelin' it today...maybe tomorrow. We've just got a lot going on over here. We might be making an offer on a house on Saturday, which is really exciting and scary. The house search has been time and energy consuming. Hubby's got a case in court right now and has been coming home so late sometimes that he doesn't even get to see Sam for the whole day, which is sad for him and killer for me. Sam and I hosted out first play group today which made me a crazy, cleaning, baking freak for the past 4 days. And there's more too. Want a hint?

The other day for lunch I made myself an entire crab dip thing - the one with a layer of cream cheese and then a layer of cocktail sauce mixed with crab and shrimp; it takes up an entire large plate. I ate over half of it with crackers in one sitting and was hungry again a few hours later.

******edited to add another hint:

Oh yeah, I cried during Sesame Street yesterday when Ernie sang the song about how he'd like to visit the moon.

I just want some earrings!

I'm standing in the shower - one of two regular length showers I get each week due to the weekend and Hubby being home - and I think I hear some crying and maybe some screaming. I wonder if I should call out and see if he needs help with Sam or find out if Sam has been hurt. I decide he'll come and let me know if he needs me. Besides, sometimes I imagine hearing Sam when I'm in the shower and we're home alone throughout the week, so maybe the noises I hear are just the weird water noises that are good at creating scary mental images for a paranoid mom.

Then Hubby comes in and says, "Does he want me to do something specific when he holds a piece of scotch tape up to his ear like he's listening to it?"
"Oh, yeah he wants you to stick it to his ear lobe like an earring," I say.
"Thank you!"

And the door is shut, the odd crying/screaming sound stops, and I take the rest of my shower in peace, picturing Sam holding tape up to his ear and screeching at his father who must be desperately trying to figure out what this toddler is trying to tell him. Earrings Dad, duh.

A Meme for the Season

I'm feeling rather festive. Hubby and I finally got out and did some holiday-related errands today. We picked up our wrapping paper, ribbons, and so forth so that I can wrap the presents that are sitting in the closet. All of them are for Sam. I've done nothing for anyone else. Don't even know what Hubby will be getting this year. But Sam's gift shopping is done and has been for over a month. Because we are on such a budget I stretched out the purchases for him over the past several months, buying a few things each month so that the expenses wouldn't overwhelm any one pay check. The result is that I love all of his gifts and put a lot of thought into each one of them since I couldn't just go crazy and buy everything, and it was done in November. We also got our little table top Christmas tree. We decided it probably wasn't a very good idea to have a tree on the floor where Sam could get to it, especially after seeing his reponse to the tree we put up at my parents' over Thanksgiving. I need to be able to leave him in our living room alone without envisioning him trapped under a huge tree he has just pulled onto himself and being repeatedly shocked by Christmas lights. So the little tree sits on our dining table so that now Sam can just scream through every meal as he tries to reach the ornaments - his favorite things: "bawus," which we now hear about 8 million times a day along with "ah oo" (uh oh).

Anyway: festive, that's right, festive. And some time ago Scribbit tagged me for this meme that she sort of tweaked to be about childhood memories. I like it. And since I'm feeling festive I'm going to try and throw in as many holiday memories as I can. I have no idea who to tag, so how about if you are also feeling festive and/or you went to Target today then consider yourself it.

One of my all time favorite memories of childhood is this...

My dad took me to see E.T. in the theater when it came out. What year was that? 1982. So I was 5. It was a special Father/Daughter event. Considering when it took place in retrospect I imagine he and I were out together without my mom for some reason related to the birth of my brother, or perhaps she was just very pregnant. As I'm sure you all know E.T. is one of the best movies ever made, but it is also painfully upsetting. It still makes me cry today, as it did when I was 5, only now I can contain it a bit more. At the end of the movie I was a wreck, totally sobbing because ET and Elliot had parted and I loved him, see, both of them. As we sat in the empty theater after everyone else had gone my dad asked me if I wanted to see it again. As the usher cleaning up the theater came around my dad handed him what I can only assume was money - whether or not it was for the price of two more tickets or it was just a bit for this kid to pocket in order to keep his mouth shut I have no idea, but we sat there through the break between showings after the usher passed by. My dad sat through ET a second time in a row and that time around I didn't cry so hard.

Probably that same year at Christmas I had a life changing experience that would set the tone for many a Christmas to come. OK, maybe not life changing...

As usual I woke up way early Christmas morning and ran downstairs to see if Santa had come. I scanned our living room to ensure that presents had, in fact, been deposited and took a brief inventory of what was there. I then ran upstairs to get my parents since it was a long standing and unspoken rule that absolutely no gifts could be touched until all family members were present. When I went upstairs I found my brother, Mom, and Dad standing at the top of the stairs ready to come down. When we went back down to the living room something was there that had not been before. It was one of those huge tubes that you crawl through sort of like this. It ran the entire length of the room and was right in front of everything. I was certain it was not there before and completely convinced that Santa must have left it there while I was briefly upstairs getting my family. My Dad totally milked it and started asking if I'd, "maybe seen a shoe in the chimney as Santa went up to get the crawl tube." How I could have missed a huge freakin' tube stretching about 8 feet in the middle of the room I have no idea, but clearly I did, and as a result I believed in Santa for many more years than the average kid. I'm not sure how I figured out what was up, but I know I probably emabarrassed myself telling that story to the already non-believers many a time.

I believed in Santa so long that I can recall this little tidbit from some time around 4th grade...

I couldn't sleep, or wouldn't, because I was certain this was my year to catch the man that had eluded me so many years ago. I was doing a pretty good job too, and I knew it because my mom kept coming in and making threats to get me to go to sleep. You know the threats, that Santa knows you're awake, that he won't come if you're not asleep, etc. But clearly it was getting too late for my mom because she eventually pulled out the big guns. She came into my room and said that she'd been watching the news, that they had seen Santa on the radar, and he wasn't going to get to our area for several more hours. I felt totally hopeless and I guess just gave up because I was asleep almost immediately.

And speaking of giving up...

The first time I ever had heartburn I thought I was dying. I thought I was having some sort of heart attack and that I was surely almost dead. As I lay on my death bed I remember telling my Mom that I loved her. I think I may have even written out a will. Then she gave me some alka selzer and 5 minutes later I was doing celebratory cartwheels. Oh, to be a 4th grader who has just had a brush with death!

Many years before...

I remember that we put the little synthetic Christmas tree in my room since we had a big, live tree for the living room. I got to lay in bed and look at it with its little lights and little ornaments and fall asleep imagining myself living inside the tree. That's what I always did when we decorated the trees, imagined what it would be like to live inside them. I was fascinated with that Disney Christmas special with Mickey, Pluto, and Chip and Dale who hid in the tree that Mickey and Pluto had just decorated, resulting I think in Pluto destroying the tree trying to get to them. But there was a shot from the perspective of one of the chipmunks looking out of the tree through the lights, and I just thought it was the best thing in the world. So strange the things that catch our attention and stay in our minds as children, and so many amazing opportunities for that magic at this time of year...