a blink of an eye

So here I am, one year later, about to take on another birthday. Jenna is two. Where did last year go? Today we're throwing her a huge sesame street themed party. Year 2's party is still for the parents. We survived another one! On top of the madness of chasing around a wild, defiant, overly-verbal, little kosher-ham, we're expecting baby Wilhelm #2! I couldn't be more ecstatic.

I hope to be more active on my blog. Believe me, there have been ridiculous events throughout the past few months. I am just out of energy. Par for the course of a working mom with a toddler and a husband 4 weeks away from completing the worlds-longest master’s program.

My life is perfect. Not much else I can say.

Happy 2nd Birthday to my amazingly perfect little-Laura!! Love you JuJu Bean!

take that stain and shove it!

based on today's posts, i have turned into martha stewart!! hardly. i cannot take ownership for this next tip. my girlfriend alison told me all about it.

oxy clean is the best product for taking out stains. like hard core stains that are in clothes that have been spot treated and gone thru the dryer and still did not come out. it is more than just adding the oxy clean to your wash. a few simple steps:

1. boil a pot of water until
2. EVER-SO-SLOWLY add the oxy clean. (NOTE: i dumped in the measuring cups worth all at once and it was a volcanic eruption - it was BAD!)
3. turn of stove and add clothes (whites and/or colors)
4. let soak for about an hour, stirring on occasion
5. wash and dry clothes like normal

your stains will be removed, the colors on the clothes won't be jeopardized, and your whites will glow!

greek yogurt!

i am on a greek yogurt kick. there is this amazing brand called "chobani". their yogurts are amazing. they taste like cream cheese with fruit in it. the pomegranate flavor has real pieces of pomegranate in it! they even have kid's yogurt too. the best part is that there is 20-25 grams of protein in each yogurt. crazy right? and it tastes good. no wonder my kid is almost 27 lbs and the tallest kid in gym class!!

today instead of using cream cheese for a dip, i use the plain yogurt. you couldn't tell the difference. instead of using oil and eggs for a cake, i used the yogurt! a little less guilt and the same taste.

thought that i would share :)

Mommy So Bad.

Plain and simple. Accurate if you ask my husband...or maybe he has said it one too many times.

Never the less, this is just one of the many full sentences that our 18 month old is stringing together. Over the past few months, Jenna's verbal communication has flourished. She is in a parrot mode where she will repeat most everything you say. Fortunately/Unfortunately a few of those words stick in her memory and come out later. Case in point, Jenna shouting "Tushy" at the lady plumber-butting it at Gymboree the other week.

Here is the latest. Enjoy!

Watch Video

Oh and if you cannot interpret/understand what she is saying, it is a spinoff of a yummy Greek dinner.

Bell’s Palsy is the new Botox!

So you may have noticed that I haven’t blogged in a while. Life has been good and BUSY! Keeping up with a now 18 month old is a lot of work, plus juggling a husband in grad school, working full time, and all the other life obligations...there hasn’t been a lot of extra time.


You’re curious the title of the blog? It all started this past Friday when I woke up feeling extra tired. I have had a shitty past couple of months with some jerks from work and have been pretty stressed. I think that overall everything with me was wearing thin. So long story short, I developed a virus that presented itself thru my face. Yes, my face. I have a condition called Bell’s Palsy, which paralyzes the nerves in the face. My right-half of my face is progressively getting more and more “still”. It isn’t permanent but could last for months. NICE RIGHT! I have to manually close my right eye, because, it doesn’t close by itself. I have to sleep with my eye taped shut. I literally look like I had really bad Botox on one side of my face. The BEFORE and AFTER! Though…it does look good…no wrinkles…and no movement.


As if this couldn’t get any worse…I had a fun day out with Jenna. Alex was at work with a 16 hour shift. We went to the aquarium and then my sister in laws came over to watch her so I could go get a pedicure. Jenna and I were just about to sit down for dinner and I was pulling up her sleeves when I accidentally pulled her elbow out of socket! She was in lots of pain. I thought that she was in pain from being constipated…she has been eating bananas like it is her purpose in life. After cuddling for a while, it was obvious it was her arm and not her belly. So off we go to the ER. In we come, a baby with a gimp arm and a mom who cannot blink. She was not screaming at that point and was talking up all the nurses. I felt like everyone was looking at me weird so of course everyone I came in contact with I had to tell them that I had a virus. One lady even asked if I needed treatment. I told her I was all set, but thanks! With a quick diagnosis and an even quicker adjustment of her arm, Jenna was as good as new! She was smiling and fist pumping the nursing staff. Multiple staff members kept coming in and I was convinced that one of them was from social services or something. Maybe I am being self conscious, you know, with only half a functioning face. Or maybe it was just like any other night at the Phoenixville ER.


Home at last, baby asleep, and I am ready to put this day behind me. You cannot make this shit up!

Um…ok, let’s go wash your hands

So we’re getting to that point in our toddler’s life [yes I said toddler! It is heartbreaking] where if she is not in sight and it is quiet, that something bad is 99.9% happening. She has been able to walk now for over a month and often gives into her curiosity and starts to explore. Typically she is found eating Mommy’s hair. Very gross but this isn’t the worst. We have been known to chow down on some cat food. The picture below was her indulging in a few scoops of lotion. Yummy!

And what goes with lotion?? Well of course, a couple of scoops of water from the toilet. Yes. My daughter quenches her thirst from the toilet. I am not even going to pose the question if this is normal or not.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I forget that babies are little sponges. They pick up on the little things that we do. I don’t even realize this at times. The other week, while trying to multi-task, I left Jenna in front of the TV watching one of her videos. She typically is content and will stay in one place. I came back downstairs about 5-10 minutes later (bad mommy) and I see Jenna standing over a pool of saliva. And of course my blackberry phone is swimming in the middle of the man-made pond. It was saturated. Needless to say: it was broken. Like permanently broken. The kind of broken when you take it to the Verizon store and they show you the water-damaged indicator within the phone, which was turned bright red, indicating severe water damage.

Where am I going with this? My 14 month old now has her own phone. A pink blackberry phone, just like her mommy did…past tense. Sigh. A month or so ago I took pictures of her chatting on the phone, when it functioned. They were hilarious. I was driving over the weekend and I hear in the background her chatter:

“Hahhhyaaa”. “Haaayahhhaa”. “Hahyaahha”.


I look in my mirror and there she is, holding the blackberry up to her ear and chatting away. Little monkey is just like mommy monkey.