Blasphemy!!

I am thinking about doing the unthinkable.

I want an e-reader. 

I am a HUGE fan of books. I love everything about them. I love the way they feel in my hands, I love turning pages, and love all the text in the neat lines. I own hundreds, and I am acquiring more hardbacks all the time. My goal in my forever-home is to have a library, with floor to ceiling bookshelves, and an rolling ladder. I love losing myself in a story, and I am so amazed at the authors who have the ability to write a BOOK. A book. A whole book. I wish I could do that. I wish I could make a story from start to finish. I want to make people care about something, and I want to build worlds with words. The problem is, I just don't seem to be able to flush out an idea enough to make an entire book. I can barely get a blog post together. 

I don't think any of that will change. There are a few problems with books. (Just so you know, that sentence hurt to write.) Really one big one, they are expensive. And I am sad to say that I own a fair few that I have not read, nor do I have any desire to. I also have a few that I have started, and not enjoyed. While they look pretty sitting on my shelf, I wish that I could own others, that I do love. There are some of my books, like the Harry Potter series, that I have read to the point that they are becoming destroyed. Seven, beautiful hardback books, with broken binding and pages falling out, food smudges, dog-eared pages, and water-damage. This breaks my heart. I fully intend on purchasing a set of the books that are NOT for reading...and just continue to read my poor, beaten up set. 

An e-reader would help with some of this. I wouldn't hurt my books. And downloading books are much cheaper than purchasing them. I could read a book, and then if I love it, wait to find a decently priced hardcover for my collection. I also read so fast, that when we travel, I need to carry multiple books. That would be easy-peasy with the e-reader. I could carry almost 1,000 in my purse. 

I am not a patient person, AT ALL. Now that I have decided I want one, I spent nap time researching the different options. I want a Nook Glowlight. TJ and I agreed to wait until closer to Christmas, the plan is of it to be Christmas present for me, and I am sure they will go on sale when we get closer. But my nature is that when I want it I want it NOW. TJ is on a business trip, and Pants has a fever and is sleeping a lot, so I want a Nook, NOW. Ugh. I even have a cute faux-leather purple case for it picked out. We have a wedding in Colorado in two weeks, and I would LOVE having a Nook for the 8 hour trip up and back. And for when Pants wants to go to bed early and I am alone in the hotel room trying to not wake him up. 

How much trouble do you think I would get in if I just ordered it? Or just went to our B&N and got it? 

Sandhiller Motel

We are at a wedding this weekend for one of TJ's very old friends. We are in Wray, Colorado - which is this teeny town up in the corner kinda by Nebraska. TJ is a groomsman in this wedding - and the host very graciously put us up in the only motel in town - The Sandhiller.

Can we say - not impressed?

Pants has a yeast infection on his poor little booty. Our pediatrician said to keep it open to air as much as possible. At home I just build him nests of towels in his pack and play and let him nakey-baby it up. The rash was really starting to get under control.

Well, since we are traveling this weekend, he spent most of his day in a car seat. So we stripped him down when we got to the motel, and let him play on the floor. He peed on the floor, so I got a washcloth to wipe it up. The cloth came up - BROWN. Not tinted, like dark, nasty, brown. Ew. I know that its a motel, and they don't shampoo their carpet every day - but come on! Once every six months? The 20 years of filth is just nasty. So now Pants is made to stay on the bed, where there is nothing to pull up on and he can't be nakey in  case he pees, so we all lose.

Then - TJ is hanging out with the wedding party tonight, so I asked him to run down to the vending machine to grab me a soda before he left. He gave me a list of options. I sent him with a dollar. The change machine was broken. Fine. We raided the coin purse, which usually goes in Pant's piggy bank.  He hit every single button and the only one that would work was the root beer. Fine. I like root beer.

And then I am sitting, watching Law and Order, listening to Pants sleep, having a relaxing time, and I hear a key in the door. I'm thinking - "Wow, that's quick. He hasn't even been gone a whole hour." Oh, no. Its a stranger. Walked in said "Oh, Excuse me!" and left.

What???

Ok Sandhiller. You need to get your shit together. Clean. Stock the soda machine. And for Pete's sake - QUIT WALKING INTO RANDOM PEOPLES ROOMS! Yeesh.

Man. Tougher than I thought.

I have 19 posts saved in drafts.

These are incredible, witty, brilliant ideas that I have written down. Some I have almost completed, I am just not pleased with a couple areas. Most are one or two sentences to remind me what I was thinking.

I like writing. I like getting stuff out of my head and out somewhere. It feels good.

Apparently, 7 month old children do not understand a mother's need for catharsis. Pants is the most difficult he has ever been. He naps less. He is figuring out that his voice gets him stuff, and spends hours a day using it. He does not forget when he wants things now. If I hide a forbidden object, instead of being happily distracted by a mommy-approved object, he yells at me. Yells. I get absolutely nothing done in a day. Its terrible. And I still do not get a full nights sleep ever. Getting closer. But not there yet.

Wow, I sound whiny. This is a wonderful time also. He is hilarious. He laughs. Its this wonderful, cute little noise. It sounds like he can't catch his breath sometimes. He follows the dogs around, he loves them. I can see the little hamster running in his head as he figures something out. He is so smart. He has this cute little fuzzy-duckling hair that stands straight up.

Its an interesting time. Its hard/fun/scary/fulfilling.

I am trying to write. I am. My boss says no.

(P.S. My boss had his doctor check-up last week. He was 18 lbs and 26 3/4 inches tall. Big man.)

Is this affection...or more sinister?

I fear my son is a zombie.

I mean, he is super cute. Adorable actually. All little spiky blond hair and big blue eyes. He squeals and babbles and laughs, and is generally the largest source of entertainment in our house.

We almost ran the legs of the dachshunds the other day because the baby was giggling at them. They were both panting and begging to quit. Nope. The baby likes it. Keep going dogs. They also have learned that when Pants goes for their racket ball - they better let the baby take it. They have sat for what I'm sure seemed like an eternity to a dog, shaking and whining, while Pants investigated the thing that they chase.

Anyway. We have a bit of a disturbing development in our house. Pants always was eating his stuffed monkey's head. When he did it, TJ would yell "BWAINS!" and we would all get a kick out of it. If only we could have seen what was to come. We would not have been so blase about it.

Pants has graduated to bwainsing me. He gets fistfuls of my cheeks (which feels lovely on its own) and then gnaws on cheeks, chin, forehead, or any place he can get his little gums. Its pretty gross. That kid drools. But it was cute and I called it baby kisses. Ha.

He cut a tooth. Its barely out. But its sharp and hurts like a serious son-of-a-bitch when he is chewing on my nose. When I saw "Ow" and make him stop digesting me, he LAUGHS. Like a little maniac

I am a little concerned for when he is able to get out of his bed and come into my room while I sleep. TJ is not worried. He says that he will grow out of it. From what I understand though, a zombie has an insatiable appetite. It don't look good for Gentry.

TJ Doesn't Even Know He is Still In Trouble

TJ and I had a stupid tiff one morning about a week or so ago. He probably doesn't even realize that I still think about it every time his alarm goes off at 5:20 - but I do.

I'm a woman. I hold grudges.  It's annoying and I can't help it.

TJ's work begins at 6 a.m. He sets his alarm for a little before 5 and hits snooze until 5:20 EVERY MORNING! One morning, when his alarm started going off, Pants started fussing. I asked TJ if he could give the baby a bottle really quick - since it was 5:04.  I got a lot of huffing and "That will make me late. I just can't do it. Wah, wah, wah." By this time Pants was full on wah, wah, wahing so I just got up and huffed my way out and took care of the baby.

Six minutes. It took me six fucking minutes.

When I returned to our room - TJ was in the shower. Hmmmm. Normally, he is still in bed. I know that he heard me get done with the baby and hopped in the shower just so that he didn't have to listen to me say "See, you totally could have helped." I crawl back in bed, and check the time. I close my eyes and listen to him shower.

How do I know he got in the shower just to prove me wrong? His alarm goes off a full 10 minutes after I get back in bed. When I have to crawl back out of bed to shut it off - cause he was in the shower. For 20 minutes.

Then on the way out the door - at 5:48 - he says "See, it would have been 5:58 now."

It took everything in me not to say something. So I stayed quiet. Which he interpreted correctly. He said I was mad about something stupid, went to work, and we haven't talked about it again.

I know its nothing. He is a wonderful dad, he helps with Pants TONS. I just rubbed me the wrong way that he wouldn't give me 6 minutes out of his morning. He would rather get up early and shower to prove me wrong, than help me out.  Jerkface.

I would have been awake anyway listening to him feed the baby, and since I was already awake, I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep until he was gone. So it really didn't change much for me. Other than ticked me off.

I have now taken it out of my head - and onto the interwebz. Now I don't have to be all grudgy about it.

See? This blog is helping my marriage already. Boo-yah.

Trying to be a good housewifey...

I am a stay-at-home mom.

Its weird for me. I love it, I love spending my time focusing on my son. I enjoy watching him grow and change every day.  I enjoy cooking. I am my own boss, I decide what I want to do, when I want to do it, with the obvious exception of whenever Pants is telling me what's up. Which he does a lot. That baby can be *quite* the little tyrant. But he is probably the cutest little dictator in the whole world so I guess he gets a pass.

I do not like some parts of it. I don't like that I don't have anything to "challenge" me. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I am a fairly smart cookie, and I don't get to do things that I haven't ever done, I don't get to deal with other adults much. Also, my home is also my workplace, so I get a little trapped feeling sometimes. Especially without my horse. That is a large reason as to why I started writing on this blog, so that I had something that is all mine, that challenges my mind a bit.

Reading all of the "mommy-blogs" online, and being around my incredibly creative sister-in-law, I feel a little, um, deficient in some areas. Creativity is not my strong point, I can't draw anything. TJ has fired me from wrapping Christmas presents because they look "like a truck ran over it". I don't even really try craft projects because I am worried they will be terrible and I will have wasted money on it. Cooking is fun for me, but I am not a baker, because the "pretty" aspect of it. And there is not as much wiggle room, baking is much more precise.

For Pant's first birthday in January, I have decided I want to make him his cake though. And I want it to be cute. I found these little cake pop things online, and decided since I have six months to try to get this shit figured out, I would give it a shot. The website I found say to back a cake from scratch. Eff that noise. They also suggested making my own frosting...ummm...no. I used boxed cake and frosting. Oops.

Then the box mocked me. It must have known I was not a baker with the serious stuff like mixers....

Yep - That says to beat 450 times BY HAND!! What the fuckity fuck? Well, since I wanted to do this right and baking scares me, I was going to follow these instructions to the letter. So I diligently counted four hundred and fucking fifty strokes. I need to bake more often, its a motha- effein work out. TJ was not helpful- he stood behind me shouting out random numbers. 

Little does he know, I have been counting for 24 years now. I'm virtually a pro. I won at counting. Sucker. 

The cake baked, I crumbled it, balled up 50 little balls, melted some white chocolate, dipped the little balls on sticks in the chocolate and then in sprinkles. And they are kind of ugly....

But damn if they don't taste good. A few more practice runs and I will not totally embarrass myself at Pant's birthday, in front of aforementioned creative genius sister-in-law. 

I am slowly becoming domesticated - who-woulda-thunk-it?

Bad Badmintoners

Well, after I titled this post I googled "What do you call someone who plays badminton?"

And the answer is apparently  - badminton player.

That is incredibly lame. I am sticking with badmintoner. I think it will catch on.

Anywho, anyone who is paying any sort of attention right now has heard of the big, bad, badminton scandal. Two teams from South Korea, one from China, and one from Indonesia were disqualified from throwing matches during the round robin play, so as to secure an easier path to the medals for them.  I was shocked.  First, that people played badminton in the Olympics.  Second, that someone on that stage would blatantly throw matches. I was amused, watched the video of the Chinese whacking that little birdie into the net, and went on my with my day.

Then, I was watching my DVR'ed coverage of the games, and something happened that prompted me to write this blog. The NBC Badminton Analyst (yup, badminton analyst) was on, and said that when the BWF - that is the Badminton World Federation in case you weren't in the know - decided to institute the round robin format they were told that this would happen.

Oh. Em. Motha. Effeing. Gee.

Hold the phone. I have a whole lot of questions here.  There is a need for a BWF? Badmintoners on the whole are big fat cheaters? NBC needs a badminton analyst?  What kind of athlete at the OLYMPICS would throw a match?

Lets break this down.

There is a need for a BWF?

Apparently, yes. I visited their website (www.bwfbadminton.org) and it was really interesting...well, as interesting as badminton gets. The sport has been around since the 1860's, and the BWF was established in 1934.  They govern all international competition, including the Olympics, and have 173 member countries.  They also take a strong stance against betting, etc....and have a "whistle blower" policy. Touche badminton.

Badmintoners on the whole are big fat cheaters?

Yup. This article (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/badminton/story/2012-08-01/London-Olympics-badminton-scandal/56668034/1) states that players throwing matches has become a widespread problem. The BWF denies it, but it happens at almost all the international competitions since this round robin thing has come about. Hmmmmm.

NBC needs a badminton analyst?

I'm going to go ahead and say no, they don't need one. I'm still not even convinced this is an actual job. In fact, I have a list of made up jobs for another post and I just added badminton analyst on it. According to his bio on the NBC website - he is returning to the post from Beijing. I bet he was super excited for a scandal, he got to be on prime-time TV.  But he is apparently the bees-knees in the badminton world, so I guess they went to the source. Just call him whatever his actual title is - don't promote him to "badminton analyst" just to make it sound fancier.

What kind of athlete would throw a match at the OLYMPICS?

Lets look at China's Yu Yang. She blogged after his disqualification that she is resigning for the sport after the IOC  had "mercilessly shattered our dreams".  She also said gave some bogus excuse about being injured and then whined "Do you know the pain that athletes suffer?"

Did I mention that she is reining world champ?

Alright Yu, here's what I think:

Athlete? Thats giving yourself a bit too much credit sister. You don't deserve that title after you decided to purposefully lose. And injured? I looked it up - badminton rackets weigh less than 100 grams.  Did carrying that racket around hurt your wrist? Did tapping that little birdie throw out your shoulder? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they practice hours upon hours, but elementary kids play badminton.  I don't remember my playground littered with badminton casualties.

This is really one of the only times that badminton gets to be in the spotlight, and by extension you. You are going for the highest honor in your sport, and you are representing your country.  So instead of trying your hardest every second, acting with integrity, and wanting to show the world the talent which got you here, you decide to be a bitch and throw the match. The ref even called you out during the match, fans were booing you, and you continued to phone it in.

And then, when its all said and done, instead of apologizing, you have the gall to act like its the BWF or the Olympics fault for calling out your bitch ass. I'm glad you are retiring, they should have kicked your ass out. I hope your kids google your name one day, after you tell them you were some bad-ass, and they see what a whiny little be-yotch you actually are. Good luck explaining that to them.

You suck.

Pants and slow-learnin'

The Pants child has been pulling up on things for a couple weeks now.  I have got to say, this is one of the most stressful times for me. He is terrible at it. He is like a little jenga tower, he won't be up long, and it doesn't take much to knock him over. 

The problem is that he has a skewed view of his talent here. He thinks he is the most bad-ass stander-upper anywhere. He uses walls, doors, the piano bench, end tables, baby gate, his baby swing, dining room chairs, the changing table, his crib, the oven, laundry baskets, you name it, he pulls up on it. Once he gets up, there is no good way to get down. Its either a bonk, or I have to help him.  I try to help him bend his little legs to show him how to get down...but Pants is not so much with the learnin'. Could be why he used the end table drawer three times in a row, cried everytime it pulled out and he fell over backwards.  Sigh. 

I think we are going to have to get our pack and play out, and keep him corralled.  There is just no way I can be present every single second. I have to pee, I have to eat, I blink. I do believe that he needs to learn his limits, and I don't want to discourage exploring, but I think I need to know that he is safe sometimes when I cannot give him my undivided attention. I haven't been able to poop in 3 days....its crazy. Or shower. I have to wait until TJ gets home to do anything. 

I am excited for him to be sturdy on his feet.  With the house properly baby-proofed, he will be good to go. I just hope we both make it until then.