Ways I will Screw Up my Kid: Third Time's the Charm!

This is the ongoing series where I detail how I am screwing up my kid... part one is here, and here is part two

5. I am no longer allowed within 10 yards of my delicate baby with nail clippers in my hand. Why? Because both times I've attempted to trim the claws that she insists on gouging her face with, I've nicked her fingers. This clipping has resulting in bleeding (minor), screaming (her - quickly comforted by momma), and crying and curling into a fetal position (not the child - but momma). Instead of clippers, I have been using an emery board to file down her talons.

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One more look at Halloween

I said that we didn't decorate for Halloween, but I told a fib.

Moo decorated the mantle. It's a weird mixture of gory and sweet.

Yes, those are skulls on either side of a picture of my daughter.

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NaBloPoMo - or I have gone insane

If you've read my blog at all, you probably know that I only post once or twice a week and that in the last few days, I've posted EVERY FRICKIN' DAY in NOVEMBER.

I'm participating in NaBloPoMo this month. NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month and was started as a counter to NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month whereupon writers promise to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. NaBloPoMo is supposed to help folks make a habit out of writing.

I decided to participate in NaBloPoMo this month to both get myself writing more and in sympathy with Moo who is participating in NaNoWriMo this month.

While he only has to write about 1600 words a day about one subject, I've gone insane and have decided to write about a different topic every day. Yep, I've gone crazy.

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Halloween Revisited

So as discussed earlier, we spent Halloween at my in-laws' house. This is because:

1. Moo loves Halloween and has had a passion to decorate our house every Halloween.
2. We don't get any trick or treaters and they get them LITERALLY by the truck load.
3. Since we don't get any, we aren't especially interested in decorating for ourselves.
4. Gives grandparents a chance to see/hold/adore/drool on their granddaughter.

For the most part, the decorations didn't photograph well, but this one did:

You've already seen Phoebe's costume so I won't bore you too much with photos of her.... well not much anyway.

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Clever

I've been trying to come up with something clever all day. So far, I'm not coming up with much.

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And Saturdays are even worse...

On Saturdays, I rarely stick to my schedule because I'm trying to be flexible.

Flexibility gives you a cranky 3 month old and dirty bottles and no clean ones with which to feed said cranky baby.

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Fridays are difficult

Unlike most people, I find Fridays to be somewhat.. challenging now.

Let me 'splain.

Moo and I only have one car. On Fridays, I drive him to the train station and keep the car for various and sundry errands and grocery shopping. This is not the trouble. The trouble is that no matter what I get accomplished on Fridays, I never feel like I've accomplished anything.

Today, I've taken Moo to the train station, gone grocery shopping, stopped by the bank and gone to Baby Nirvana. I've also made a pitcher of formula, paid the guy who cuts our grass, taken out trash, gone to the chiropractor for an adjustment, filled, run and emptied the dishwasher and had lunch. On top of the fact that I'm toting a 3 month old around in a baby carrier who likes to be changed, fed, and played with on occasion.

It's the things I haven't done that seem to bog me down on Fridays. I still haven't gotten all the baby purchases out of the car. I wanted to make some cupcakes, clean the car, put a Netflix video in the mail, clean our master bathroom... the list goes on and on. And I know that I won't get it all done today. But then, sometimes it's hard for me to see the forest for the trees.

I'm generally an optimistic person so this glass half full feeling isn't very nice. I end up feeling like I'm just bumming around not getting anything done, wasting time, wasting the opportunity I've been given to stay home with my kid and make a living.

So, I'm resolving NOT to do this anymore. Here on day 5 of my 100 day reality challenge to change my life, I am always optimistic and know that there are only so many hours in the day. I get everything done that needs to be done. I am a great wife and mother and I love my life.

How do you let the little things bog you down?
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Vision Boards

Today I've spent some time meditating about my intentions and I worked on my vision board.

What is a vision board you say? A vision board is a visible representation of the results of your goals and intentions. If you want a particular car, then you'd put a picture of the car. If you want to weigh a particular weight, you'd find a picture of yourself at that weight or someone else at that weight and put it on your board.

Vision boards help you focus more deeply on your intentions.

Do they work? Well, in August of 2007, I put this picture on my vision board:



and 3 months later I took this picture:


So yeah, it works.

So I'm sharing my vision board with you here. I'm making it my desktop background and will print a copy of it for my ACTUAL vision board in my bedroom. My vision board is in my bedroom because it's the first thing I see in the morning - well besides the lovely and talented Moo - and it's the last thing I see in the evening - except for the forementioned Moo.

What are you doing to make your dreams come true?

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President Obama

I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. Atlanta: the home of Coca-Cola, the best sweet tea in the world, and the middle of the 1960's Civil Rights Movement. Folks tend to think of the south as racist and backward with poorly educated rednecks.

My mother had grown up in Atlanta too, went to a public school before desegregation and taught me not to judge someone by the color of their skin. She was staunchly anti-racist and slammed my father for his racism on a regular basis (my dad was from a tiny town in south Georgia and racism seemed to be a way of life in that little town.. things have greatly changed now).

I grew up and went to public elementary school in the seventies - not long after school desegregation, but long enough that I never knew what it was like to go to an all white school. My best friend was a girl named Bridget, a pretty black girl one month older than me. Bridget braided my waist length hair every day during PE and lamented that my hair was too soft to hold the braid.

I tell you this because I was moved to tears last night when Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States and the first black person to fill the office. My daughter will grow up in a world where race is no longer criteria for who gets to lead this country.

He won the presidency not because he's black or because he's a democrat. He won because he's smart and because he has been able to connect with people - black, white, Hispanic, straight, gay, conservative and liberal in a way that made us all want to work hard to get this relatively unknown guy into office.

I never believed that Hillary Clinton would win. I have always thought that she was divisive and, at this time, we need unity, not division. Obama has been able to unite us in the same way that Bill Clinton was able to unite us.

I have ALWAYS believed that a black man would be president before a woman of any race. Why? Because of what happened to Hillary - the comments about her tone of voice or her fashion sense. We're not quite ready to let go of the misogyny, but I really believed that we were ready to let go of the racism.

That's what my mother taught me. That the colors of the rainbow had nothing to do with your intelligence or your potential in this world. She taught me that only I had the power to hold myself back.

Thank God that Barack Obama's mother and grandparents taught him the same thing.

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Ways I will screw up my kid, Part Deux

The second part in my ongoing series of how I will mess up my kid... part 1 can be found here

4. She can no longer rest on the ottoman in our living room like a jewel on a pillow. Why? 'Cause she rolled right off of it today. Scared the hell outta me, but she's ok. She cried for all of 30 seconds and was quickly comforted. I'm paranoid enough that I immediately went to Dr Google to look up concussions to see if Phoebe had one.

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