So much to talk about

It's been quite a while since I blogged and I feel like there is so much to talk about that I don't know where to begin...

Love - I have never felt so loved. I have an amazing husband, wonderful family and the best friends a girl could ask for. I had the pleasure of spending some time with one of my dearest friends, Sarah. I don't get to see her much because her husband got a job and took her back to IN. How selfish of him (insert sarcasm font here). In addition to spending time with Sarah, I got to spend time with her folks and her little boy. Her parents were so great. I couldn't have asked for a better welcome. They were so gracious and made me feel like part of the family. Love you guys and thank you!

Life - Crazy busy to say the least. While we were on said trip (when we left IN and got to KY for my work), we had 2 ER visits. The first of which was at 2:30 am at the Children's Hospital in Louisville. Moose was feverish, wasn't sleeping, had lost his appetite, crying, fussing, and had a really bad diaper rash as well as a rash on his chin. After 4 hours in the ER, we leave with Motrin and a diagnosis of... Hand, Foot & Mouth (and butt, but no one mentions that) Disease. The best I can figure it, is that he picked it up at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis (which is AMAZING, by the way). Nice... Oh, did I mention that it is HIGHLY contagious and we are traveling with my 80 something year old granny with a diminished immune system?

What was the 2nd ER visit, you ask? Well, it was for my Granny later the same day. She was having trouble breathing, was getting dizzy spells and her ankles were swelling. They did all kinds of tests on her and while she was there, her and my aunt fell in love with the doctor (who apparently looked like Dr. Travis Stork from the show the Doctors).  Ah... if only my granny was 40 years younger...

Mommy-hood - Moose turned two, pardon me while I ball my eyes out... It was a great party, he loved the balloons and we had a kiddy pool, sprinklers and our swing-set. I think all the little ones had fun. He got so many toys and so many clothes! I think he is set for the winter. We went together with my parents and got him a Stryder Balance Bike. He loves the idea of having his own bike, just like daddy!

Caffeine - Yes, please! Lots and lots! As a matter of fact, can I just get an IV hooked up to my arm?It's fall so all of the yummy fall flavors are out there and while visiting Sarah, she treated me to a Salted Caramel Mocha from Starbucks. It's like a little bit of heaven topped with salted caramel goodness. If I was rich (and didn't have to worry about the calories) I would have a Salted Caramel Mocha every morning and a Pumpkin Spice Latte every night. Both accompanied by a slice of my mom's pumpkin bread. Mmmm... my mouth is watering as I speak. I'm not sure that there is much out there right now that tops those flavors. Oh how I love fall!

So those are my thoughts on Love, Life, Mommy-Hood and Caffeine for now. Here's wishing you many, many caffeine filled drinks!

Where I have been...

I've been MIA the last couple of weeks because I have been uber busy. Planning for Moose's 2nd B-day, 9 day business trip, working... blah blah blah...

I'm back now and plan to be around more often, whether you read it or not!!

Love, Me

I'm very put together...

Anyone who knows me personally, knows that I am very "put together". I'm very even keel and very in control of my emotions. (Insert sarcasm font) I'm so not that. I cry at stupid stuff (like episodes of Ghost Whisperer and ASPCA commercials), I'm an emotional train wreck since I had Moose.

Last night in bed at about 11:30pm (when I most definitely should have been sleeping), it hit me, Moose is turning 2. Not just hit me, knocked me down and stomped on my face.

It was totally a emotional hormone filled attack and totally irrational, but here are the thoughts that ran though my head as I cried uncontrollably and DH tried to console me (poor guy):

~ It's going by too fast..
~ He's really not a baby anymore
~ He's closer to not needing me
~ I don't want him to fall in love and get married and move away from me
~ I don't want him to outgrow my hugs
~ What if he is as horrible to me as I was to my parents when I was a teenager
~ It's not fair that when he becomes an adult, he'll probably be closer to Jon than to me
~ And many more irrational fears and thoughts that I'm sure I am completely overreacting with but insanity emotions are hard to control!

Dumb, I know, but every once and a while I freak out about it. Jon thinks I'm crazy because Moose is just now getting to be really fun! Then he proceeded to tell me how he compares Moose's two years to running and went into a very lengthy explanation. I was super impressed by his analogy but could not repeat it to save my life. He's such a good man. I love him to death and he totally got my mind off my anxiety.

Oh the humanity!

Ugh... I have debated whether or not I would write about this, and decided I would. I will take one for the team and let my embarrassment be a source of amusement for you.

I have only been working at my current job for about 2 months and they love me there (not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am pretty amazing). I do typical office type work which includes alot of writing. I have always loved writing, but never thought it would be something I could make money doing. One of my duties is helping out with her blog, doing a little research, pulling pictures, etc...

Pulling pictures is not necessarily something I am good at. I do the google searches and bing searches, but I have a real hard time nailing down the correct search terms to get it to pull up what I am looking for and then actually choosing what I think is a good picture is very difficult for me. Gasp! I actually admitted that I have flaws... mark that on the calendar cause it doesn't happen often. (Insert sarcasm font)

My boss (we will call her #1) was working on a blog and asked me to pull some pics and place them in the the blog she wrote. Once I had them situated, she wanted me to schedule the post.

I scoured the internet looking for pics. I found a really cool clock photo (the topic was routines). I thought that would be great, so I saved it and placed it in the blog. I needed one more. I kept looking when I finally came across a cute little comic about routines. I glanced over it thought it would work. I copied and pasted the comic into the blog. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of the end...

The morning it was scheduled to post, I got to work and went about my daily routine. I saw my other boss (we will call him #3, not #2 cause that just doesn't sound right) and he seemed a bit distant, but I just thought he was busy. Ehh, not so much. When #1 came in, #3 followed and said, "Jen, we need to talk." Ugh... my heart sank to my stomach. "What did I do?" I was thinking.

Me (timidly): "Ok"

"Do you think this is appropriate for our company?" said #3. He reached out to hand me something. I looked down and saw the comic I chose for the blog. Gulp.... Crap, what was wrong with it? What did I miss? How did I not take time to catch whatever it was prior to posting it? That's totally not me (again, I'm admitting a flaw).

I took a deep breath and looked over the comic, and I saw it... WHAT THE CRAP? How could I have possibly missed that? OH MY WORD! My face flew right past red and went straight to purple. I felt like I was on fire from my head to my toes and I was suddenly tingly all over. I simultaneously wanted to cry, vomit and bury my head in the sand.

No, no it most certainly was not appropriate. I'm not sure exactly what I said at this point, but it was something like, "OH MY GOSH! No, I'm so sorry. I totally didn't see that. I'm so sorry. I have never been so embarrassed. I am SOOOOO sorry. I never would have used that had I seen that. I am sorry." My head was now buried in my hands. I couldn't even look at them.

#3 said "Well, I have to say, I am glad you are responding this way because if you had said yes, it's fine I don't see a problem with it, we would have had a problem. Luckily, #1 saw it before it posted, so there was no harm done." No harm done? I beg to differ... there was quite a bit of harm done to my ego, my pride, my self respect... How could I ever look them in the eye again?

#1 spoke up and said "Thank God, you are reacting this way. I was so worried that you actually thought it was alright." No, no, no, not alright, not alright at all.

I think I just kept saying "Oh my gosh, I am so sorry" over an over again. I think I was hoping the more I said it, the more it would erase from their memories what had just happened. No such luck.

After they laughed it off a bit, and I died a little inside from embarrassment, we went on about our day. Much to my dismay, I had become the joke of the day.... and I still hear about it from time to time.

Are you wondering what the comic was? Well, I refuse to go into detail, but basically there was one tiny little block of the comic that was very, VERY inappropriate. A man and his computer (although blocked with a censor bar) is not a beautiful thing. HOW ON EARTH DID I MISS THAT THE FIRST TIME????

I hope my humiliating story has at least made you smile, maybe made you snicker and if I'm lucky, made you smile.

Oh, you just wait...

So, I took Moose to get a hair cut today (he was blessed with my thick head of hair) and we were standing the waiting area when Moose said "Hi" to a woman sitting there.

She replied "Hi, how are you?"

"Uh, Nick cut-a hair" he said while rubbing his hand through his shaggy brown hair.

"Oh, my he's so cute! I have a 4 year old at home, well almost 4. He's 3 he'll be 4 in December." (Um... December? That's like 3 months away, that's not almost 4, that's a little over 3 1/2. Moose will be 2 in 12 days and I still tell people he's 1, I don't want to age him one single day!)

I said "Thank you. He will be 2 in a few days."

"Oh," she said "He's big, like my son. So you haven't gone through the whole "terrible twos" or threes, yet, huh?"

I, (politely, mind you) replied "Well, so far he has been a really good baby. I haven't had much to deal with, it's been nice."

Almost angrily, she stated, "Yea, I thought mine was too, (snicker) that all changed. You just wait."

Ok, first off, I'm sorry you are raising a little hellion, but that doesn't mean that every child out there is doomed to be a little brat. Secondly, I didn't ask for your opinion, why would I? I don't even know you. If I wanted advice, I would go to my trusted friends and family, not a random stranger in a hair salon. Thirdly, why would you want to ruin my moment? Maybe Moose will turn out to be a holy terror (heaven forbid!), but if that's the case, why not let me live in the moment? Why do you feel it's your duty to warn me of my impending doom?

Thanks for your attempt at a PSA, but no thanks. I will ignore you "breeders of negativity"... I will relish these moments where my son is my perfect little angel!

Mommy time...

Why is it that when we become moms, the rest of our lives cease to exist? I realized (as soon as we told people we were pregnant with Moose, really) that I am no longer Jen, I'm Moose's mom.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE being Moose's mom and there is nothing in the world would ever make me want to change that, but why are moms expected to lose their individual identity? Not that our husbands expect us to, not that our friends expect us to and not that our family's expect us to, but WE expect that of ourselves, whether consciously or sub-consciously. We put alot of pressure on ourselves to be "super-mom", whatever that means, and lose the things that made us "us" to begin with.

I love having "me" time. I crave it. I need it for sanity's sake (and my husbands sanity, for that matter), but I always put it on the back burner. Oh, there's laundry to do, oh, there's dishes to do, oh, there's work to do. Whatever, there will always be "something" to do, but why is it so hard to put all of that stuff down and just take time for ourselves. To do the things we love, to spend time with a friend (one on one), to read a book, to go for walk, to go shopping (for ourselves not our little ones)...

A good friend dragged me out of the house yesterday to have some much needed girl time at the Prime Outlets. It was a day filled with talking, window shopping, frappacino's and trying on shoes, all of which was AMAZING! Which made me wonder why I don't take time to do it more often and why must all of that be filled with feelings of guilt because I left the little one with my hubby, or my mom, or a sitter?

Time to just be me, ahhh.... Time with my new obsession, pumpkin anything (except pie) and toasted almond latte's from dunkin donuts (not that I can actually afford to purchase one!).

Maybe it's just me who feels this way, maybe I'm the crazy one, but I don't think so. Again, I just think its one of those things we don't talk about much. This week, I'm going to try to make it a point to make time for me. I'll let you know how it goes...

Here's to us, mama's and a little bit of "me" time!