My Promises To My Nuggets and "Mama"

Parents don’t always get things right, and I am not exempt from that but there are a few things that I will promise my children, and no matter how exhausted or busy I am, I will always, always keep these promises…

Dear Chase McGee and Ry-Ry Pumpkin Pie,

 

* I promise to always greet you with a smile in the morning and be genuinely happy to see you.  Everyone deserves to start their day off loved. And you are loved.  So, very loved. 

         * I promise to always (and I mean always) pack the ice-cream down in your ice-cream cone.  Anyone who leaves the cone hollow should not be trusted, under any circumstances.  Use this test to pick future partners. 

      * I promise that I will not lie to you about having a baby book.  I simply have never kept one up to date for you.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, it just means that I like watching television more than printing pictures.  But I also promise that the night before your high school graduation party, we will both sit at the kitchen table until midnight, sorting through 18 years of memories, pretending to be crafty and create one together.

     * I promise that whenever you ask me to read you a book, I will stop what I’m doing and read to you.  (Unless it’s a book that I don’t enjoy, in which case I will read it once and then throw it behind the book case in hopes that it will never again be discovered.) 

          * I promise, promise, promise that I will never stop writing about you.  Even when you are old enough to read this yourself and despise every word, I will never stop.  Adult you will appreciate this promise.  

 

Love always,

Momma

On a side note: Ryder has said “Mama” eight times. And “Dada” zero.

#sorryneighbors

My Night….

Chase (runs in from the deck): “Can I go over to Grayson’s grandma and grandpas and play?”

(They are our sweet neighbors. Chase and their grandson play together all of the time. Our fenced in backyards open up to each other’s yard, essentially making one big yard, so the kids run back and forth, all of the time.)

Me: “Sure. Dad will come get you when it’s supper time.”

Chase scampers off into the sunset. 

About 20 minutes later, Cory goes to the neighbors to get Chase for dinner. Cory comes home and says, “Guess what Chase was doing.  He was sitting at the kitchen table eating Little Ceasar’s pizza with the grandpa.  Grayson wasn’t even there.” 

Chase piped in: “I peered through their window and saw that they had pizza and I hoped that they would offer me some.” 

That’s right, my child wanted to eat pizza with the neighborhood grandpa and made it happen.  It took me a good 20 minutes for my laughter to subside and to be able to look at Chase without having to cross my legs, trying not to pee from laughter.  Hey, the kid knows how to get what he wants #winnerwinnerpizzadinner

A couple of weeks ago, we were outside in the backyard playing and our neighbor lady was gardening.  She walks over to the fence and says, “Congratulations.”  Coming up blank, I asked, “For what?”  She replied, “Chase told me you adopted a sweet blonde-headed baby girl.” (Chase was describing my girlfriend’s daughter).  I could feel my ears and cheeks start to turn red from embarrassment.  I replied, “We do love her, but we didn’t adopt her.”  The neighbor is silent for an awkward 17 seconds and then replies, “I’m guessing it’s not his birthday today either?”  I face my eyes to the ground and simply reply, “No, that’s in February.” 

I look over at Chase who is swinging on the swing.  He says nothing but gives us a shit-ass grin and continues about his business.   

Why, oh why, is this my life?

Soccer Mom and a Vampire

This summer Chase chose to participate in a soccer class.  And I say “participate” loosely.  Chase loved running up and down the field, kicking the ball and playing with friends.  Well, until the last 5 minutes of each practice when the team scrimmaged. 

Each child was handed a red or yellow jersey to put on.  All was fine and dandy until one evening, Chase was handed a yellow jersey- THE HORROR! He was not pleased with being on the “mustard” team, and let everyone know.  And then from that night on, he was given a yellow jersey. Every. Single. Time.

Cory and I would close our eyes every day when jerseys were passed out, almost praying our child to be handed a red jersey.  We must have horrible karma.

But if we thought scrimmage time was fun, you should guess what is more fun than 5 and 6 year olds playing scrimmage… when 5 and 6 year olds plus their parents play.  Wait, I may be getting fun and dangerous confused.  Yeah, as it turns out, I am getting them confused.  It is all fun and games until your child gets not one, but two soccer balls to the chest, delivered straight to him from his father, kicking full force with a tiny Chase 5 feet away.  Oh, and all while wearing a yellow jersey.  #soccersucks

But you know, we have the soccer team photo to help us remember this special soccer summer.

Wait for it.  Wait for it.   Ahh, there is our sweet Chasey standing nicely next to his friend.  Oh wait, my darling Chasey is standing to the right of the child standing nicely by his friend.  Silly me and my aging eyesight.  

Why is it that every other parents gets a picture of their little nugget smiling and enjoying soccer.  I get a picture of my child, arms crossed pretending to be a vampire in a coffin.  I don’t want to stifle his creativity, but come on.  There are no vampires- or coffins for that matter- in soccer.  And frankly, sometimes, I just want you to follow directions without spicing it up a bit.  Oh, and did I mention that it was a group picture, so not only do I get a picture of my vampire child to put on my fridge but so does every other soccer mom on the team?

In other vampire news, I have spent the last week cutting vampire teeth out of every white cardboard box around so Chase can pretend that he is a vampire.  This activity is then followed up by bracing myself for my child’s disapproving feelings after the cardboard vampire teeth become soggy from his slimy spit. Every. F-ing. Time.  #chroniclesofavampiremom

Daily Forhead Smack… (I'm surprised I don't have a gigantic bruise smack dab in the middle of my forhead.)

Grandpa Jim: “Chase get your shoes on so we can go to the movies.”

               -Crickets-

Grandpa Jim repeats: “Chase get your shoes on so we can go to the movies.”

Chase stares blankly at Grandpa for a few seconds and then scurries off.  He returns eating chocolate pudding.

Chase: “You said to get my shoes on so I started eating pudding.”

They never made it to the movies.

Forehead Smack.

Grocery Store Debacle

So usually, being a parent of two is pretty awesome.  You know, unless you venture out with a five year old (who believes he is an emerging track star) and a teething four month old, to the grocery store.  Then you pretty much just want to gouge out your eyes with the metal skewers that are in the grilling department. Not the wimpy wooden ones.  Maybe if I were gushing blood, someone else would jump in and push my cart full of crackers and kids which weighs twice as much as I do. 

Any who, I spent over an hour at Coborns when I was just planning on “picking up a few things.”  I spent a large majority of the time chasing my Chase (how appropriate, right?) through the aisles. Up and down, up and down until my legs started to feel like Jello. Then, finally, I get to the check out, just in time because I was almost ready to rip my white T-shirt off and make it into a flag to wave at the check-out lady, half distracted by the random grapefruit that was in Ryder’s car seat and started searching for my coupons.  I mean, for real, I took time to cut out coupons, I sure as hell am going to find them. 

So here I am searching, searching, searching.  I look in all of my 900 pockets (I swear to God my pants grew more pockets as I’m searching frantically), in the diaper bag, in Chase’s pockets (because who knows what he keeps in there and where the hell he found that grapefruit), under the bread at the bottom of the cart (damn, how do my buns and chips always end up under a case of pop and canned corn?) and just when I was on the verge of saying, “F*ck it” just like my own personal hygiene these days, I looked right in front of me at my smiley, babbling, little baby and there they were, in his mouth.  That’s right.  My baby ate my coupons.  Oops! I forgot he knew how to work his hands.

So I did what every other mother of a coupon-eating baby would do.  I grabbed what was left of the soggy coupons, did a one pointer-finger sweep of Ryder’s mouth, and handed what was left of them to the checkout boy (luckily, I was about 15 years his senior so I was banking on either the fact that he wouldn’t question his elder or praying he thought I was a MILF so he wouldn’t make this an issue.  Who am I kidding?  A MILF? More like 'Mother I Would Like To Forget' (ya know, due to my obnoxiously, greasy sweat pants and aroma of two day old breast-milk.  Cute picture, huh?). Any who, I handed him the coupons fully expecting to have to argue my case that Coborn’s competitors would price-match half eaten coupons.  Luckily, I think the cashier just wanted to be done with my crew and quickly scooted us along our way. 

By the time I got home. I wanted to curl up in the fetal position and not reemerge as an adult until the next morning, but then I remembered I had to put away the groceries, while nursing a 4 month old and simultaneously finding the newly purchased box of fruit snacks at the bottom on the 700^th grocery bag for my eldest nugget before he told me, again, that (and I quote) “I’m ruining his childhood.”  #justanormaltuesday    

 

On a side note here was my conversation with Chase the other day:

Que in the sound (and smell) of Chase farting. 

Me: “What do you say?” (You know, expecting him to be a gentleman and excuse himself.)

Chase: “Wow, I’m gassy.” 

(He may be the death of me.)

Our little Ry, Ry. Chillin' the day away. 

Dancing Dust and Booger Boobs

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on my little nugget-faces:

So, here is the latest with Chase, my five year old nugget-

Yesterday, I walked into my room and saw something disturbing.  My five year old was on my bed (okay, not so disturbing so far), kneeling with his head poped forward, mouth open chomping on floating dust that was dancing in a sunbeam, shining through an opening in the curtains.

I mean, kid, I get it.  I’m not Betty F-ing Crocker, nor will I ever be, but I could totally pop a waffle in the toaster for you, so you don’t have to literally feast on filth. 

After I have observed as much as I could stand of this, I asked Chase what he was doing.  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “What, I’m hungry.”

I literally turned around, walked out the door and closed it behind me. Hoping that maybe, I was confused on what he was doing.  But no, I wasn't.   

My newest nugget, Ryder, is 3 months old already and is the happiest, most round, babbling baby you will ever meet.

   

This morning I was nursing my little nugget and looked down at my baby eating, fully expecting to see my little ray of sunshine smiling back at me as a simple, “Thank you” for being his personal milk vending machine 24/7.  Instead what I saw was my boob smeared full of boogers that were still semi connected to his nose. There are many things I have wanted for my chest, you know, like to finally fit into a size 32A cup or to not be jealous of the chest of any, and all, 13 year old boys.  But I guess we all can’t get what we want.  Not only have I never been able to fully fill out a training bra, now that I finally have a bit of a chest (thanks breastfeeding), I get a chest full of boogers.  #momlife  #nothinggrossesmeoutanymore