Squeaky Clean

I went grocery shopping with Chubbs today.  I didn't bring a list because we needed so many things that I figured I'd just go up and down the aisles and grab whatever looked good.  This is a dangerous strategy, by the way, and we often end up with several kinds of cookies when I employ this shopping method.  Anyway, we walked by the personal care aisle, and I remembered that we needed some hand soap and lotion for the kitchen sink area.

I prefer to buy natural and/or organic products because I feel better about not having random chemicals that may do weird things as they absorb into my skin.  So I read the labels on a few different kinds of soap, looked at the prices, smelled them, and decided on a Hugo Naturals soap.  I looked around for some corresponding lotion, but a couple trips up and down the aisle proved fruitless.  So instead I decided to go with the Burt's Bees hand soap because there was a bottle of lotion right next to it.  Very convenient.

We finished our shopping with much yelling from Chubbs and a bit of shock on my part in regards to how much the bill was.

When we got home, I put all the groceries away, washed my hands with the new soap (grapefruit ginger!), and rubbed some of the new lotion (shea butter and milk) into my hands.  It was a little sticky, but it eventually absorbed and felt pretty nice.

That evening when Chris got home, he noticed my purchase.  "So you went ahead and made an executive decision on the soap?  It had better smell good."  To test it he washed his hands and approved of the grapefruit ginger smell.

"But why'd you get two kinds of soap?"

Oh.  That would explain the stickiness.  And why I thought Burt's Bees was the only one to have lotion right next to the hand soap.

Words Fail Me

Before leaving the dog park today, I changed Chubb's diaper.  We usually use cloth diapers, but I had to go with a disposable because that was all I had in the diaper bag.  Plus, I think they were a size too small; this was my fatal error.  I was starving when we got home, so I stuck Chubbs in his bouncer and scarfed a fake chicken sandwich.

After I ate, I picked him up and was carrying him into the kitchen when I noticed that my arm was feeling a bit damp.  I moved my arm to find a huge poo stain on his back.  Huge.  I took him upstairs and started to change him, but this blowout was so big, I didn't even know where to start.  It was a poonami.  I finally just decided to take his clothes off and stick them in the washer right away and then stick the kid in the bath.  While I was oxy-cleaning the heck out of the clothes, I stuck Chubbs on a blanket in the middle of the room.

I threw the clothes in the washer and went back to the room.  I found him like this:

Notice the poo stains on his back.  And he had peed all over the carpet.  True story.

Momma's Day Part II: The Streak Has Ended

The beautiful string of sleep-filled nights has ended.  With a vengeance.  Poor, little Chubbs had bad gas last night (totally my fault - I had to have chinese food) and was pretty unhappy, which he let me know about every couple hours.  At least I have some sleep saved up.

I would also like to brag about the fabulous Mother's Day gifts that Chris got me.  And it wouldn't be a present from Chris without some sort of twist; he didn't wrap the presents.  Instead, he put these gifts away where the would normally go, and I had to wander around the house until I spotted them.  The first one I found was a set of stainless steel storage containers for grains.  This may seem like a weird gift, but I looove to organize things (thanks mom and dad), and I have been wanting something like this for awhile.  The other present took me a long time to find, because it wasn't where I expected it would be.  Downstairs in our office Chris hung up a bunch of pictures of Chubbs, him, and me - it was a great, personalized gift.  Thank you, darling!

What's more, my wonderful in-laws gave me a rather delicious gift.  I have already eaten almost all of it:

Yummm...

Momma's Day

My first mother's day was both good and bad.  I shouldn't say bad, just less fun than I would have hoped.  I had to work, because some people have the audacity to get sick on holidays.  So we celebrated a day early at my parents' house with a delicious dinner of crab cakes, sweet potatoes, black beans, and salad.  There was also bacon-wrapped filet mignon for the carnivores (everyone but me).  I love it when my father cooks.

I celebrated the occasion by wrapping Cormac in a much too heavy blanket for his nap, and then not hearing him when he cried because he was too hot.  Poor little guy cried for awhile before Gran went to check on him and heard him.  Way to go, Momma.  Luckily he's resilient, and in the end I was the only one who was upset.

I think Cormac forgave me, though, because he gave me the best Mother's Day present ever:  a full night's sleep!  He went to bed at 8:00 pm and didn't wake up until 6:15 the next morning, when I was already up before work.  It was heavenly.  And then he outdid himself.  He slept all night both Sunday and Monday night.  I am flabbergasted.  But I am not holding my breath.  I am just going to be thankful for every extra hour of sleep I get, because odds are it won't last.  Sigh...

In all seriousness, though, I want to say the being a mother is the most wonderful, most difficult, most mind-boggling thing I have ever done and will ever do.  Nothing can prepare you for how much you will love this funny, little person.  Or how much you will worry about whether you are reading him the right books, putting him in the right diapers, feeding him the right food, and other seemingly trivial things.  Because once you become a mother, you put the majority of your self into making sure that this funny, little person grows up to become a happy, big person.  And my guess is that it doesn't even end there; I will continue to worry, just a little, until the day I die.

And one more thing, to my Momma: thanks for not screwing me up too much, and showing me by example how to be an amazing mother.  I love you.