Off the grid and still not a soccer mom...

       So I recently gave up my stupid Droid, not only because it's a Droid and it sucks, but because it's $40 extra a month, and I realized between our phones and our house internet, we were spending $120 a month... just for internet access.  Do you have any idea how much alcohol I can buy for $120 a month? I also gave myself a pep talk and said to myself, "You will have three kids by the end of the summer, you should be responsible and cut spending blah blah, you don't need the internet on your phone because you will be pacing the living room when you are stuck here with two babies blah blah, stop counting down the days until your contract is up so you can get an iPhone, because it's just frivolous blah blah."
       


                I want an iPhone so Mr. Wonderful and I can use Siri inappropriately like this... 













In reality, having a smartphone is something like what I imagine would be to have a small addiction to heroin. I am literally feeling like my right arm has fallen off, and I think I now exist in the world of 90 year olds who have a cell phone only to keep their kids happy. I barely check Facebook, I have abandoned my friends on Draw Something, and I feel like I don't know how to drive anywhere without my Maps. (The GPS just seems archaic at this point). I also can't draw diagrams and upload them to my blog, or go on banned websites while I'm at my part time job. I can't do anything.  I imagine this is what being grounded is like. 


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                  I promised in my last post that I would talk about Princess Particular's soccer team. Basically, she is in a soccer clinic and at the end, they play a game. But the problem is that Mr. Wonderful and I laugh at all the players (who are five to six years old) and give them nicknames. We also plot on how to make the fall session better by bringing concealed mimosas and man-mosas (If you don't know what a man-mosa is, I will be putting up a page with all of my best recipes... that I have stolen from other people. Just in case you want to be just like me) Mr. Wonderful said the other parents would give us judge-y looks if we showed up with red cups, but I said we simply put our cocktails in travel coffee mugs, and then everyone's happy. I am a very skeptical sports mom, not really ever sticking with one sport myself, and get most of my exercise now from shopping and carting around kids. I have to say, Princess Particular was totally pumped and looked absolutely adorable in her uniform, and was happy to get started. We only knew one girl in her group, who turned out to be Mia Hamm. 

            Ummmmm... we are here for kindergarten soccer.. are we in the right place?

Next, we have Chu from the movie Ladybugs; I tried so hard to find a picture of her and couldn't... if you don't know Chu, from the Rodney Dangerfield classic 90's movie, she is the goalie, and isn't really interested in soccer, she is interested in daydreaming about butterflies. We call one little boy Chu because he is the team's goalie- only the coach specifically said there are no goalies. Chu throws himself to the ground, all the way to the back of the goal, tangled up in the net, every time the ball is on his half of the field. After the coach pulls him from the ropes, he says an encouraging, "Hey buddy, let's go try to kick the ball.." Nope. Chu is back in position for another shot. 

Ron Weasley is a cute little redhead on the team, named for his famous doppleganger. I don't suspect he's British in real life, but I like to give him dialogue such as, "Oy, toss me the football mate"

Slumdog Millionaire is one of my favorite players on the team. He has never touched a soccer ball. He is constantly having the ball stolen from him, at which point he runs off the field crying. He also has a talent for randomly falling to the ground. Somebody pass this kid the ball!


    On a side note, there is one kid that I will be adopting, who we named Oliver Twist; because his dad is a total and absolute asshole. He spoke over the coach the whole time, demanded his son come over for a lecture every time he made the slightest mistake and you could see the miserable written all over this poor boy's face. It's kindergarten soccer you shit head, not the World Cup. He even refused to give the boy a drink until the coach said it was time for a break. At one point, the boy tripped and didn't get up. Thankfully, the father didn't yell at him, but when the boy came off the field he was crying and you could see he was just broken. He said he hurt his leg and didn't want to go back out there. The dad had killed a five year old's spirit. Don't be that person. Don't be that shitty parent who ruins even the most simplest of pleasures for your child. I guess this is my first experience with a long line of dealing with these kinds of people, and it just makes me sad. Repeat after me; It's.just.a.game. 


More updates on whether or not Ron Weasley is actually British, and if Slumdog Millionaire ever gets to kick a ball in a few weeks. Til then, there's no I in team.. and there's no Draw Something for me. 

Some good clean fun?

             Normally, this is one of my life mottos:

This weekend, I went on an absolute rampage, and I was all like this:

 I cleaned my house from top to bottom. I have never had the nesting thing happen while I was pregnant; I mostly tried to do as little as possible in the past. This time, I can't clean enough. I think it was a combination of the fact that spring break was ending, my kids needed summer clothes out, and I have never cleaned before in my life. In other news, one of the most dangerous features of The Money Pit was our front stairs. They were most likely the original wood stairs, leading up to the sun porch, and they were barely hanging on. It was like playing Russian Roulette every day, to see who would actually fall through. Since most of the time I'm not only carrying a baby in my tum but also in my arms, Mr. Wonderful decided that this particular Saturday would be the one that he designed and built new stairs. 
          I had to show the bastard up. I actually wanted to head to the shore house, and plant my ass and my kids in the sand, but I woke up on Saturday with a burning desire to clean the kitchen. After going to my first ever soccer clinic with Princess Particular- (definitely more on that another time, because it was hilarious) I scrubbed every inch of it, even under the coffee maker. I cleaned the spice rack. I cleaned the dish rack. I found an avocado pit in between the stove and washer, and I climbed on top of the washer to scrub the top of the fridge. How did so much crap get up there? Mr. Wonderful is the only one who can see the top! 

Now I realized I was a woman obsessed. I knew that the hormones have taken over, and I was nesting. 

                           
                After the first floor was spotless, I went to check on the progress of Mr. Wonderful and Uncle Gay. (Our completely heterosexual friend helping Mr. Wonderful- this is the name given to him by Princess Particular when she was learning how to talk) They had taken down the stairs and I saw a huge hole under the porch, leading what inevitably was the giant groundhog colony that has been living rent free and pooping under my porch since God knows when. Cool, how do we kill them? No, no, we love animals around here, so for now the groundhogs stay. I will however, be forwarding them their new lease. The guys disappeared to Home Depot for a few hours, and I tackled more of the house. 
              My darling girls share a room, and it is a princess freakin wonderland. One benefit of having two girls is that I only have to buy one wardrobe for the most part. I have buckets and buckets of clothes from Princess Particular that Squeakers can utilize, and after hours and hours of sorting, separating into sell, keep and give away piles, I had two summer wardrobes out, clean and put away, and also clothes on standby for all three girls for the fall, including our newest addition. I have never been so prepared for anything in my entire life. By this time, I know the wrecking crew is back and has had a few beers, so I figured that plus power tools warranted a check up. They were diligently hammering and leveling the stringers and insert construction words here.  I ran to the store to grab some dinner to feed these poor guys, and by the time we got back, we had stairs. We all took turns dancing up and down them, and while standing in the street, Uncle Gay looked in awe at our new, non wobbly dangerous stairs and exclaimed, "They look f*cking professional." Yes. Yes they do. 




Only 4,829 projects to go until The Money Pit is complete. At least it's sparkling clean. Yesssss.

Welcome to Dysfunction Junction

                 Everyone's got problems, right? I mean every person reading this has at least a few things in their lives that is plaguing them. It's part of being a human. That woman that you stalk on Facebook with the interesting job and white picket fence and charming pictures of her adorable freakin kids and hot husband probably has a serious pill popping problem or is a closet hoarder, or maybe is actually in debt up to her ears. We all know that everyone has problems in some form or another, I definitely do. What I want to actually talk about today is the sliding scale of dysfunction that we impart on our kids. Personally, I worry about all these little things that happen in our every day lives that will eventually screw up my kids, until they are sitting on a couch, telling some stranger what a total asshole I am. 

                  I like to believe that, in my own little world, that the actual amount you screw up your kids is on a sliding graph. (And I'm being satirical here, people, I'm not talking about actual life altering screwing up your kids, just those little things that we all remember from childhood.) For example, when I was little, I saw that my mom had a new nail polish. I thought it was the most beautiful nail polish color ever created, so I took it and carefully painted a giant heart for her, and probably used 3/4 of the bottle. She beat my ass. Not physically, but she is really loud when she yells, and it made me feel terrible. I made you a present, biatch. Like how much could the nail polish have cost? I always remembered it, and now I try to have patience when Princess Particular dips into my expensive makeup or draws in permanent marker on... anything. 

Super accurate hypothetical graph of exactly how much you can screw up your kids before they need the couch:

                  Another prime example of something that will mess you up for life is catching your parents doing doinkies. (pronounced doy-nk-ees, copyright of my stepdad, Fatboy) I thankfully never experienced this, but (and if you are related to me, now is the time to stick your fingers in your ears and say lalalalalala) Princess Particular once walked into our bedroom, said, "Oh. You're dancing on the bed? Weird." and walked out. Sweet Jesus, one day she will realize what we were actually up to! Enter therapy. 

                   The great part about this is that in order to keep the dysfunction to a healthy level is that you can do awesome mom things that they will remember and cherish. This includes but isn't limited to: playing Barbies until you feel like you may take the scissors and give them a "haircut", making homemade anything and letting your kids help; and doing any craft at all you find on Pinterest. You can also let them play the songs they want on the radio, have movie nights and build a huge fort in your living room. A good guideline to go by is to do the exact opposite of whatever exists on your own therapy chart. Please feel free to leave me some great stories about how badly your parents screwed you up, either in the comments here or on my Facebook page :)    Don't leave me hanging, I know you guys are one Xanax away from hitting up the therapist too!

We are now an episode of Full House... you know, minus the dead Mom.

                       


             If you don't know me personally, the cupcake was pink, which means Girl # 3 is on the way. There are many reasons why this is awesome, and many reasons why this is challenging. First and foremost, Mr. Wonderful has the sad puppy dog look in his eyes when I tell him that this is it, the baby factory is shutting down. Men want boys. Clearly, everyone, Mr. Wonderful included, wants a healthy baby, but everyone has that slight tug on their heartstrings in one direction or another, pink or blue. This is understandable, and I hope his second wife is up for having a boy. My ideal son would be gay; I am not built for raising a heterosexual male child. I don't have any brothers, and now having three girls, I am totally in girl mode. I don't like noise, or messes, or clumsy elephants stomping through my house. I have little to no interest in sitting through thousands of hours of games, travel teams, and having an entire Sports Authority worth of athletic equipment stinking up my foyer.  Athletic cups? Barf. 
                                                         

    ....and this is just what's actually covering the front steps...


          Three girls are no picnic either; I see three proms, three boyfriends, and three weddings. There is also the in between; the clothes, the makeup, the periods, and the drama. For example, Princess Particular had a birthday party to go to yesterday. She wore her Easter dress, (which she is still wearing; she refuses to take it off, telling me she looks extremely beautiful in it) and since the party was at a park, I negotiated with her to wear sneakers. Her compromise was to bring her Easter shoes, which have a super fancy 1 inch heel to wear for the cake cutting. Mind you, she thinks these are 6 inch Louboutins. Mr. Wonderful calls them "cake shoes" and looks a little bewildered at the whole situation. 
            After being pregnant with my third child, I have found that my size 8 feet have grown to tranny size monstrosities, and I sometimes deny this by squeezing into shoes that clearly don't fit. On Easter Sunday, I am carefully walking to church in one such pair of shoes, and Princess Particular is walking at the absolute slowest pace in front of me. My goal is to make a beeline for my seat so I don't have to walk anywhere for an hour. When I ask her to move a little faster, she gives me the bitchiest look she can muster, and says, "Mom. I am in high heels here." Oh. Sorry. 
                Multiplying all of this girl joy by three is a little scary, but exciting. Princess Particular is a great big sister, and Squeakers will be a great little sister and big sister. Mr. Wonderful is the perfect Dad for three girls; he's scary when he needs to be, and a teddy bear the rest of the time. They completely manipulate him, and I think he likes it. He should begin construction on his man cave though, just so he can maintain his sanity. I, however, am going to put in an immediate request with Mr. Wonderful to build them their own bathroom. Actually, scratch that... build me my own bathroom. They can call fight over the other one. I'm worth it. 
                
             
             

It's a baby.....human.

              Now in an ideal world, as I'm sure you will agree, your life would look something like your boards on Pinterest. Well decorated rooms, creative recipes, organized house, cute crafts for your kids, and adorable party themes. Along with being well dressed and well read, this is basically how I see my life, in that far off place called "One Day", when I actually have time to do all that crap. For now, however, I have thrown together something I like to call the gender reveal party, my style. We are finding out Baby #3's gender today, and since the last two were slightly unceremonious, we decided to jump on the bandwagon of having a gender reveal party.

If I had more control over my life, we would definitely have a board like this...

                                               
             To give you some back story, we weren't going to find out the gender of Princess Particular. That is, until my mother insisted that I have the doctor call her and tell her the gender, because buying yellow and mint green clothes is stupid and she couldn't possibly wait another 20 weeks to start shopping. I was fine with this, until Mr. Wonderful's mother found out, and clearly didn't think it was fair. Now we had two mothers knowing, and we wouldn't. Finally, on the way to the doctor's office, we decided to find out. The technician showed us the two little lines indiciating a hoo haa, and there we had our baby girl. With Squeakers, we were seasoned parents, so when we saw the two lines again, before the technician told us, we both had an inkling that she would be a girl. This time, we went for a more suspenseful approach.

This is wildly inappropriate, but hysterical.. do I see an invitation opportunity here?

           We decided to have a cupcake party, in which our family and friends come over to pull back the wrapper on a cupcake, revealing this little monsters' gender. The bonus is that we will be surprised too, because this time we are not looking at the ultrasound. Fortunately for my friend Maure, since she is so wonderful, she will be the first one to find out the gender of the baby, because she is kind enough to make the cupcakes. All the bakeries in town wanted three days notice to make the cupcakes; like I would ever sit around wondering for three extra days. I will update late tonight with a picture of a pink or blue cupcake to go along with the post!  

The Hunger Games.... just made me hungry.

              So I read The Hunger Games, and it was a quick easy read. There were a lot of political undertones, and complex character relationships. Also, even though it is set in the future, the combination of futuristic elements of The Capitol intertwines in the most fascinating way with the dire need for survival in the Districts. To think that such advanced technology was available to some citizens, but hunger and starvation could be such a widespread plague is mind blowing. The story had a few clever twists and turns, and was pretty entertaining, however it is clear from the beginning that Katniss will win the games one way or another. (I'm not ruining anyone's life here who hasn't read it... there are two more books in the trilogy so clearly the main character doesn't die..)  Did it blow my socks off? No. It's pretty hard to shock a 28 year old mother of three. My version of The Hunger Games is when you are so bogged down with keeping other people alive, clean, and happy (and obviously doing it with your Happy Mommy Face on) you realize you haven't eaten in the last seven hours.  Also, I think this was a little intense to be classified as a Young Adult novel; add some more sexy time and make it for grown ups. Peeta's love for Katniss is evident from the beginning, and although she is preoccupied with the probability that she will be killed in the games, she was just a little too clueless in my opinion. 

                                                                  
                The Hunger Games themselves are absolutely horrific, but well thought out and creative. The fact that the Gamekeepers can change the dynamic of the game at any moment left me guessing, and kept it interesting. The thought of being hunted absolutely terrifies me; I always cried when I played Man Hunt as a kid. The thought of other people looking for me just makes me want to pee my pants. I also have made Mr. Wonderful promise me on several occasions that in the event of an apocalypse (especially a zombie apocalypse), he will just smother me and then try to beat all odds to survive. I am not a fighter, I am not a survivor. Katniss is one bad ass character, and even though she is launched into a world of trouble at the end of the book, it will be really interesting to see how she does in the next installment. The worst part about the whole book is the food. If you haven't read it, there are vivid descriptions of giant feasts of all kinds of delicacies, and this doesn't work well for someone who is 20 weeks pregnant. I have probably gained 10 pounds in the last four days by reading this book.
                   I am beginning the second book, Catching Fire, which I have linked here on Amazon. I hope that I will be a more enthusiastic reviewer after reading it, since obviously this trilogy's popularity is blinding. I haven't seen the movie yet, not only because I rarely go to a movie that's not for children, but because I always read the books before seeing the movie. My fifth grade super fan has explained to me in a forty-five minute lecture each and every difference between the book and the movie, so I'm pretty sure I can wait for the DVD. Looking forward to getting your thoughts on The Hunger Games, and I hope you will steal a few minutes for yourself in your day to read a good book. Keep your brains sharp and your vodka chilled! 

Check out this really great cause!

Please check out the new page on my blog, The Daniel Liss Memorial Foundation ... his sister is busting her ass to help the families of people who are going through hell, and she rocks. Pediatric cancer is one of the many shitty things in life that just aren't fair, and it only takes a few minutes to get involved or make a donation. They also hold an amazing 5k called Torbethon in the fall, so if you need to get your booty in shape, you can start now and do great at the 5k!