More Mom Advice....

File this under Really Good Motherhood Advice....

Don't set the "horns" to the breastpump on the windowsill at work when it is -10 degrees F. It just ain't comfortable.

Don't ever leave the house without a spare outfit for EVERYONE if the baby hasn't pooped in 4 days....

Don't lick your finger immediately after using hand sanitizer.... don't let anyone else do it either.

Teach your son not to stick his tongue on frozen metal. (Do this by explanation... not demonstration.)

Don't teach your son how to open the door if you don't want him to go outside.

Empty the potty chair BEFORE you start throwing the football.

The Rodeo Queen Update

Cassidy arrived in Vegas (with mom) on Thursday and got all settled in. Her little Chevy Colorado was packed pretty tight but, compared to the other girls, she seems to have packed light. She only brought 16 pairs of boots and three hats.... She was feeling a little tense and stressed-out when she arrived in Vegas so on Friday she went sky-diving to blow off a little steam. Yup, that's our girl.

Thank you to everyone who sent cards & notes to Jody (Montana's national director) before the pageant. You can follow the pageant progress on the official website: http://www.missrodeoamerica.blogs.com/ AND you can send email support to her via missrodeopageant@yahoo.com with "Cassidy Han, Miss Rodeo Montana" in the subject line. She can receive email until Friday at noon so please drop her a line if you have a moment.

Thanks to you all!

PS. The above photo is NOT her skydiving..... it is her at work..... hence the sooty face.

So I was wondering.....

Can you think of a slang term for nipples?

Nope, me neither.

Wish Bucky read my blog..... she'd have one.

*** UPDATED ***

One Crue Girl wins. Tune in Tokyo. Every time I bare a breast to nourish the child I'm going to think of that phrase and start to giggle.

Darling Girl and her namesake Auntie.

Same nose. Same cheeks (although you can't see it here). Same deep-set eyes. These two are roughly the same age. That scares the fuck out of me. Maybe naming her after her Auntie Niki wasn't such a wise idea....

She's at her fighting weight and training hard...

4 month shots yesterday..... she was a champ.

The stats
Head: 50th percentile 16"
Height: 75th percentile 25"
Weight: 90th percentile 13#7oz

I've never really gotten into the "percentile" race.... except this time because it is so funny.... and, of course, it makes me feel superior regarding my milk production.

And my doctor gave me a stroller. What? A very nice double-jogger. Obviously I'm his best patient. I think I deserve it. I think he owes me.... he must feel guilty for the 4.3 minutes it took me to deliver Darling Girl.... and he didn't really do anything except suction the ook out of her nose..... so I got a stroller. Bonus.

Don't question these things. Just know I lead a charmed life.

She isn't just a Blob anymore....

Darling Girl has been doing that I'm-going-to-make-a-comma-shape-by-arching-my-back thing a lot lately.... usually trying to chase her paci into her gummy little face.

Last night.... yes, on Erection Night.... while Hot Stuff and I avoided the last of the political mumbo-jumbo by watching Deadwood on dvd (What Sweet Boy was in bed and Darling Girl won't be TOO warped by the violence & language.... will she??).... she ROLLED OVER.

Back to front over her left arm.

I didn't believe it so I put her on her back and SHE DID IT AGAIN.

And then she grabbed the dog by the ear and he licked her full on the face (much to her delight and my horror), then he looked at me and said, "What? She came to me."

HELP

Car seats.

Oh car seats.

What to do about car seats.

First, the scene:

Child One: approx 30 months (2.5 years), 35 lbs, tallish.
Child Two: approx 4 months, 16 lbs or so, tallish.

The situation:

Child Two is in a bucket seat and, based on my current predictions, will be in it until March-April or so. AT THAT TIME.... we need to decide our next car seat configuration. Child One currently has THREE car seats. A Britax Roundabout (Because we are nothing if not gullible yuppie wanna-bes.... and it was low-profile and on sale.), an Evenflo something-or-other (it looks like a papasan chair.. maybe this) & an Eddie Bauer over-the-head bar seat that I can't find a picture of but it doesn't really matter....

So can Child One graduate to some sort of booster seat soon? Any suggestions? I want, of course, safety first but I also really want low-profile (think two car seats & a dog in the back seat of a Toyota). And I want.... cheap.

There I admit it. I want cheap. And I want convenient. And I'm looking for the best compromise of safe, cheap & convenient. (I say this because I felt a lot of guilt over turning Child One's car seat forward facing at 13 months when I learned my sister-in-law was horrified and couldn't believe it.... she is ALL ABOUT safety. So the next time she visited we let Sweet Boy drive home from Nana & Papa's.... we're rural like that.)

So advice, criticism, website referrals and honest opinions would be welcome.

Hey, hey family and friends.....

My baby sister is going to Vegas. She leaves the day before Thanksgiving for an eight day competition for Miss Rodeo America.

Here's the request. Please send cards & e-mail in support.

To assure delivery to Cassidy, please send them BY NOVEMBER 23rd to the following:

c/o Jody Rempel
National Director
1405 US Hwy 89
Fort Shaw MT 59443

You can email her any time at missrodeomontana2006@yahoo.com

This is going to be an exhausting week for her and she will really appreciate a little love.... and while you're at it... if you aren't from Montana and your state has a queen.... send her a little love too. These girls really do work hard.... It ain't all about lookin' good in your wranglers..... they're smart too.

OK people.... the elections are OVER.

Take down the damn yard signs.

On and Off Again

This weekend Hot Stuff learned what many people who regularly wear jewelry or are married already know…. Rings go on easier than they come off.

Poetic, isn’t it, that he discovered he couldn’t get his wedding ring off? I mean, hey, I don’t ever want him to WANT to take his wedding ring off, right? But….. His job makes it dangerous for him to wear his ring so he usually has it on a chain around his neck. Last week he went to a conference and decided to wear his ring on his finger. Well, apparently, that little “jam” he suffered this summer…. The one that was so insignificant he didn’t even tell me about it….. yeah… I’m pretty sure he broke his finger. I palpated it. (Lord, I love saying that.) Yes, I palpated and, while I’m no expert, I can feel a lumpy spot. (Hey, that was fun to say too.)

So we tried lube. (hee-hee) And ice. (hoo-hoo) And lubed ice tugging with a terrycloth towel. All the while I was taunting him for having TWO broken bones and cataract surgery (again) in the last six months….. words like fragile, precious, dainty and delicate. As you can see, I am one to enjoy my man’s suffering.

So we went to our favorite local jeweler…. The ones who have our credit card number on speed dial….. and they used a little tiny can open (er… circular saw) to cut his finger off…. I mean…. His ring off. Miracle of miracles they didn’t cut through the inscription. (It says “Hey, put this back on” Ok, no not really….) They measured him and figured out a plan to repair the ring (I missed that part….. small son said, “Mom, I gotta PEE.” And we were off on a mad-dashed race to find a bathroom…. Successfully.)

And all ends well….. Hot Stuff feels just horrible about having the ring cut off but, hey, in the greater scheme of things I’m still the big loser…. I LOST his great-grandmother’s wedding band…. He just got a little over-zealous about showing those conference sluts he was a married man.

Pondering Milk

I noticed the other little one at my daycarista’s was using a medela bottle too. You know…. Those clear plastic ones with the yellow tops that you consider, in a bleary-eyed pre-coffee state, using as creamer out of the fridge at work. So I asked if I needed to do anything special to mark my bottles. She said my standard pen-n-tape marking was fine and she also noted she could usually tell our milk apart because of the color. The other mom’s was white-blue-white and mine was creamy. I, of course, took “creamy” as code for “yellowish-and-possibly-substandard” so I did an internet search and found this and then emailed my source-for-all-things-baby (and, interestingly, the source of many of my medela bottles) and asked if it was normal to have milk that looks like vanilla slim-fast.

SHE said my milk was perfect and the buttery color (buttery…. I love that term… it sounds so much better than smoker’s-cough yellow) was from high fat content and my chestages were producing a superior product. Her own milkage (which nursed three chubby wee ones and countless others when she donated a freezer full of frozen milk to la leche) was the color of hazelnut creamer. So I got the thumbs up for being a vanilla creamer kinda girl.

I also learned drinking green gatorade can tint the milk. How cool will that be for St. Patrick’s Day???

I am 3.