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!

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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.

The TOP 10

I wanted to prove to the husband that I am capable of blogging my not-so-wonderful qualities/behaviors. I FREQUENTLY do something “bad” and he goes…”gonna put that on the blog?”. So YES Alex…I am. Just like the top 10 on late night TV shows…here is my TOP 10 BAD LAURA list:

10. I am known to leave the bed in an un-made state…often.
9. When I am hungry, I am a beast to be around. I tend to come back to normal after I eat something.
8. I don’t know the word “No”.
7. I tend to take on primate cleansing behavior and “pick” at the hubby – gag, gross, I know.
6. I forget to feed the cat…often…again.
5. I take on more primate cleansing behaviors with our daughter's ears and nose.
4. I yell at the hubby when he puts butter on foods because that is gross and unnecessary…especially foods like sticky buns…it is already loaded with butter fatty!!
3. I nag and am judgemental and monitor the hubby’s food intake…see #4
2. I throw out milk cartons and do not remember to rinse them out. The house then has a rancid smell and I blame the hubby
.….
#1: I forget to pay a certain fairy at times…ask my mom, she’s in debt to the fairy too!

I am not perfect. Alex, you’re welcome.

She said what?!

The baby is no longer a baby. She is officially a toddler, as she has progressed to the next room at the daycare. The toddler room. Where they wear shoes [we only have one pair that fits], sleep on nap-mats, and drink from sippy cups. She’s a big girl!! Jenna finally learned how to walk, which was fantastic to see. Within one week, she was walking, climbing out of beds, and attempting to open the door. I swear this next statement is not made up: she was doing the hand gestures for the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” song!! They were wreckless and off-beat, but I KNEW that she was doing it!!

So yes, she is VERY smart…but compared to ALL of our friends who have babies, she’s a genius like the rest of them. We have a significant number of friends with babies around Jenna’s age. They all have their own special tricks, capabilities, and talents. And like Jenna, I am sure that they stick their finger in the nose, stick out their tounge, and pass-gas in public! All the babies are perfect in their own ways.

You would think as a parent, you wouldn’t start being competitive with your offspring when they are at this age…YOU WOULD THINK. I am not naming names but there is one person I know, who proceeded to take competition between my kid and their kid, to an unmentionable level. Let’s just say that I was told, at a family event, that my 1 year old can CURSE! Imagine that! My own little sailor. Well, if you saw her learn to walk, she did look like a intoxicated sailor. So sure, XXXXXX [not mentioning this idiot’s name]…jenna dropped the F-BOMB! Thank you for announcing this fictious statement to an entire group of people.

I guess my kid is the SMARTEST of all the kids out there….

Mmmm…Bacon.

In honor of an appetizer that I will be making for a family get together this weekend, I had to share a fantastic story. A little background is required to truly appreciate it:

I am Jewish. My husband is Catholic. I grew up eating fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The same can be said about him, except it was pork. He and his family love pork. That is an understatement but in order to remain in some good graces, I will leave it at that. Recalling one Christmas holiday where there was 14 different pork products served in less than 24 hours. I was baffled by a pig’s ability to reincarnate itself in 14 different dishes. I digress.

While on a walk with a dear friend, a BLT dip appetizer was mentioned. I smiled and shouted with glee! I was going to make this for Alex’s family and be the hit of the party! I always over do it and so I decided to double the recipe. A recipe that already took 1 pound of bacon. Being the good Jewish girl that I am…well not that good considering I married a pork eating Catholic, I committed myself to making the recipe. When explaining the recipe to the hubby, he mentioned how his mother used to cook the bacon in the microwave. Seeing as I was not very proficient at making bacon (disclaimer here that turkey bacon is not real bacon and it cooks differently), I let Alex do the “cooking”.

Fast forwarding the story…I went somewhere and came back and the house smelled of bacon. I go into the kitchen and see Alex standing next to the microwave with paper towels everywhere and this giant square shaped pile on a plate. It can only be described as a layered concoction of bacon and paper towels. Alex had decided that he was going to microwave two pounds of bacon…ALL AT ONCE!

At first I was livid, I was beside myself! All that bacon, ruined! You would have thought that it was fillet mignon. Then I thought more about what I had walked into and realized that he was microwaving TWO POUNDS of BACON! Then I really lost it. But this time, it was from laughing.

To this day he will deny and then confirm the events discussed above. My eyes were tearing up just writing this blog entry! Looking forward to trying this recipe again!