Ah, sleep.

I take Mateo to daycare Fridays and my husband picks him up. Normally I either take him and pick him up or just pick him up - it depends on the day.

I usually look forward to my Friday mornings, even though I still get up at the icky hour of 3:50 AM, because I get to spend about 20-30 minutes alone with my dear pal, laptop.

Yesterday was no exception. I was uploading pictures to Mateo's blog while watching Big Brother 10. Each picture was taking a really long time to upload, so at about 5:35 AM I decided to put my head down for a little rest. I was going to wake up Mateo in 10 minutes to start the morning routine...so a nice little 10 minute head lay down sounded really nice.

When I opened my eyes, I realized our bedroom was unusually bright. And that my laptop was blank because it went into standby mode. And that it was 6:30 AM.

I kept staring at the clock, thinking, why is it 6:30? Then...why didn't my husband wake me up before he left? Then...wait, was I asleep when he left? Then...where's Mateo? I heard him murmuring over the baby monitor. Then...was I asleep when my husband left? Why'd he just leave and let me sleep? (I really wanted to blame this on him.) Then...do I really need to go into work? Can't I just stay home and keep sleeping? I remembered it was basically impossible for two reasons: 1. I had a 10 AM meeting and 2. my co-worker (as in, I really only have one co-worker) works at home on Fridays.

I got my butt up and by then had wasted 5 minutes trying to clear the cobwebs from my brain and trying to remember exactly what happened an hour ago and how I found myself sleeping for an hour, causing my hair to go all funky since I was lying on it for that hour.

I got Mateo's milk and went into his room. He was standing in his crib, waiting for someone to come get him (probably thinking, "where momma? where dadda?" like I was thinking "where's Mateo?" earlier). He had pooped, so instead of giving him his milk, I changed his diaper, then changed his clothes, and then figured since I was now in a rush, I slathered his sunblock on him. After putting him down, I handed him his sippy cup and walked out of his room, going into our bedroom to change my clothes.

About 30 seconds later, he whipped around the corner and came into our bedroom, all smiles. For some reason this rush-rush-RUSH business was quite humorous to him. I got dressed, tried to fix my funky hairdo, slapped on some deodorant, told Mateo to come with me, brushed his teeth, put his shoes on, put his hoodie on, put him in the stroller and out the door we went. We left the condo by 6:50 AM. Record time, and thankfully, Mateo was cooperating with me (for once!).

We made it to daycare by 7 AM, and I was on BART in enough time to catch the 7:20 AM train. Which made me late, but not as late as I thought when I first shook off my stupor.

New design: Meet Artemis, an elephant.

Artemis is waiting for you on Zazzle. You and see him by looking at my slide show over to the left, there. Zazzle is so much nicer than Cafe Press. Once I get my Grumpasaurus and Triple Threat shirts moved to Zazzle, my Cafe Press stores are shutting down and never to return. I just don't like how they have their site set up and the quality of their products is sub par. Zazzle hasn't disappointed me yet.

I'm thinking Artemis might be the start of a character line which will turn into characters for a children's book since I've always wanted to create one. I still love children's books, and now I'm so glad I have a kid so I can buy more and more and more of them!

Foster Farms frozen chicken is sooo not ready to cook.

I thought I was outsmarting the grocery store by buying a 6-pack of flash frozen, individually packaged, boneless skinless chicken breasts. Why? Because they were 10 bucks instead of the normal 12 bucks for 4 unfrozen chicken breasts.

I generally plan quick, easy, healthy meals for my husband and I to eat during the week. Tonight was no exception. And with my lovely flash frozen chicken, it was going to be even quicker!

Or so I thought.

The box said to cook the frozen chicken in a preheated 375 degree oven. Check. Put in shallow dish, apply seasonings of choice, and lightly cover with aluminum foil. Check. Cook for 30-40 minutes. Check.

I was making "Asian Chicken" (yes, that's what the recipe was called), which was a combo of soy sauce, vinegar (I used rice wine vinegar), brown sugar, garlic and some pepper. I poured the sauce on the frozen chicken, the sauce slid right off and pooled under the the chicken. Oh well, I thought, I'm sure it'll soak up some of the sauce as it defrosts and cooks.

I spent the next 30 minutes with my child and husband. The husband and I talked about random things, basically catching up with the day's happenings while our child ran around tormenting Zoe and eating fruit jellies, sometimes with a box on his head.

Right before the chicken was done, we moved into Mateo's room to start the bedtime process. I left my husband with ensuring Mateo goes to sleep duty so I could finish preparing dinner.

I took the chicken dish out of the oven, took off the foil, and was greeted with four mostly raw chicken breasts swimming in sauce and patches of solid chicken funk and fat. Normally this would make me ill and I'd not want to eat it. But it was actually smelling darn tasty, so I decided to just put it back in the oven for another 30 minutes and cook the heck out of it. Chicken jerky, anyone?

And this is how we ended up not eating the chicken or the Thai coleslaw I never made or the leftover potato salad for dinner last night, and how we did end up eating pizza. Because by the time the chicken was done, it was going to be way too late to make anything more as this lady's brain shuts down around 7:30 PM.

Lesson learned? Defrost the individually packed chicken breasts like I would any other frozen chicken. And don't believe everything I read.

I might not be a hater, but I sure am snarky.

Seems my little ol' post way down there has went and caused a big old uproar with the internet peeps.

After careful consideration, and much, much badgering from random people (wish I had such a posse, man oh man, the country we live in would soon turn to NutNutastan where only my friends and I would have a voice), I decided to rewrite my original post where I linked to a certain product on a certain web site.

Why? Cause I'm a hater snarky.

Why give someone publicity? I mean, I just got a whole mess of hits last night because of that one post, albeit hits from people who know the person whom I linked to or know of this person, so on the flip side that person gave me a lot of publicity. Just think if the direct link to my post wasn't blasted on Twitter - my hit count would be so much lower and every blog owner loves the hits.

Now, I'm a reasonable person and mature person. And I actually emailed the person, explaining myself, offering the peace pipe and hoping this person would understand that, ultimately, this is my blog, and, much like a diary, it can be a stream of consciousness sort of thing, and well, when you're dead tired from being up since 3:50 AM and having to work all day and then take care of a very unhappy toddler most of the evening, and you've got a brain full of 1o bazillion thoughts and ideas but you have to take care of the very unhappy toddler because dear husband is out drinking beers, you're just not going to be as clear as you'd like to.

And I could have taken care of the complete misunderstanding on this person's part where this person thought I was accusing her of stealing my or other people's ideas (hello, carnival theme?) if this person had contacted me, even publicly, to ask for clarification. Instead, things were assumed, my url was blasted on Twitter (I'm still getting the hits from it - thanks!), and her posse of protectors and friends posted their comments about the post, which are now deleted because I'm simply not going to stand for that sort of thing.

This is my personal NutNutastan and I am dictactor! Here me roar!

So hater, I am not. Snarky, yes. Jealous? Not really. Offended? Of what. Apologetic? Not after the responses and comments I've received. Especially when I was informed by this person that this person has no control over what other people say, yet this person thanked everyone who participated in blasting me and told them they will get cookies. (I'd prefer money, myself. Cookies just make you fat, and I know fat, oh yes I do.)

I'm not in High School and I don't play the bully games.

As the old saying goes, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. It's unreasonable to think every single person will cheerlead your work and will only have positive things to say. And if attacking someone who didn't even say something negative just because you're a tad sensitive, annoyed and can't take any amount of criticism is the way you want to show your professionalism, then more power to you.

And you, you know who you are. You and your 60 friends. Twitter that.

New onesie or shirt design on ZAZZLE.

I'm still distraught with Cafepress, so I decided to check out Zazzle, a site I've used before but never for public selling.

Upon request for a more "girlie" design, I've created this lovely little item.

I have yet to figure out how to pull a picture from the site itself, which I'm now starting to think is impossible, and really, that's okay because that means others can't totally steal my design, so I'll just go ahead and post it down here full well knowing someone can just steal it like they can anything else I've stuck on my blog. Hmmm....Anyway.

Wow! I'm tickled!

Kmommy from the Poopie Patrol just awarded me this fab-u-lous blog award:



I came across her blog on Wordless Wednesday because of this too perfect post. It reminds me of our living room after the storm known as Mateo rushes through it, dumping out all his toys onto the floor.

As part of this award process, I am to award 7 blogs I frequent this same award. Since I'm "supposed" to be working right now, I'll have to do that later.

Thanks so much! Tickled!

What's up with bad service lately?

My sister sent me a coupon code for free Safeway grocery delivery. Since grocery shopping always seems to be a HUGE ASS chore in our household, one that is often left for me to do in the wee hours of Tuesday morning (which I kinda like because there are no otheres around, and those that are are weird and fun to think stories up about, like the Foodmaxx cashier I call "crackhead" cause she acts like she's hopped up on something), I was keen to get my groceries delivered to my door.

I've made a new rule about not shopping at Safeway because I was walking out with a receipt totalling $120 bucks on average, but I tend to do a lot better when shopping online. There aren't really any impulse buys or creative meal plans I can come up with when I actually have to search for things or shop aisles by clicking "next" over and over. Food loses its thrill.

I managed to only spend roughly 70 bucks, which is the best I've done in a long time, with a small extra list of things to purchase at Foodmaxx because I knew I could get them cheaper there. AND I bought chicken breasts and pork tenderloin. How good is that? Amazing!

The delivery guy came and went. I was in my PJs and looking bag ladyish, so my husband dealt with him. Then I was let loose from my hovel (bedroom) to put the groceries away. After I was done, I looked at the receipt again.

Two things were missing:

• pork tenderloin that was supposed to cost way cheaper, but was listed at $12 something, and
• a lemon.

The lemon was expensive too for some reason.

So I had to send Safeway an e-mail telling them the delivery guy ran off with my pork and lemon and I wanted my money back. Even though not getting the items delivered is annoying, at least this Service Rep (or CR, as I've been calling them, or "Joel" as he's called himself) didn't respond to me with an idiotic, misspelled e-mail, although it was completely canned. How do I know? Because he used the word "assure" correctly, something most uncanned e-mail writers hardly get correct.

This morning I went to Foodmaxx to pick up the items from my small list I mentioned above. I walked out with about 7 bags of food items and spending almost 50 bucks. In my defense, most of the food items are for Mateo. Although I, myself, do enjoy a mean Ritz Bitz Cheese Cracker sandwich thing on occasion.

Remember that shirt I made?

Well, let me tell you this, Cafepress sucks big stanky monkey toes. And I don't mean the Mateo-kind.

Now let me tell you why. The quality of the shirt leaves a lot to be desired. I can forgive this since it's a toddler shirt, and who cares, said toddler will only be wearing it for so long. But what I can't forgive is ordering a 2T and receiving at 12 months shirt*, essentially making my child look like a belly-showing hustler, out to get some love.

*note my child is 17 months old, way past the 12 months stage.

At first, I actually thought the shirt was too big, since most 2Ts are too big for Mateo, and then when I looked at the tag and saw "12 months" on it, I was really perturbed because even it is does fit him okay, it's not going to for long.

I got onto Cafepress's web site and submitted my "I want a freaking replacement, like NOW, you losers who can't get things correct if a bat bit you in the neck." In the box, I stated I ordered a 2T and received a 12 months. Very soon after I received an e-mail from a CR telling me she was sorry the shirt didn't fit and that she wanted me to be happy and therefore as a lovely parting gift, I can keep the shirt because they ("they" being Cafepress) didn't want me to have to pay for shipping to return the shirt.

What the?

So I wrote back, thanking the CR, but also making it very clear that it wasn't my fault the shirt didn't fit, in fact, it was Cafepress's fault, and I had stated this in my original message to the company.

The CR wrote me back:

I do apologize that Cafepress sent you the incorrect size. However, you replacement order does contain the correct size that you order. You are scheduled to recieve your replacement order by July 23rd.

I hope this helps.

Suuuuure, that helps. Yeah, okay. So I have to wait forever to get a shirt I ordered over a two weeks ago.

The misused words and misspelled words are in bold. Apparently CRs are required to answer all email responses, without benefit of a form email. Why are CRs afraid of spellcheck?

Of course, when I got home with Mateo tonight, I had to put the shirt on him to test out the shirt's cuteness (very) and how cute Mateo looks wearing it (really). Getting the shirt made helped me realize some minor tweaks I need to make to the illustration, so I guess it wasn't all that bad, and even though it looks like a half shirt on Mateo, of course I'll make him wear it until his replacement shirt arrives.

Oh, but that's not all. Someone else bought a Grumpasaurus product, a mug, to be exact, which was received by this person yesterday. Cafepress did a fabulous job of shipping, and the handle of the mug arrived broken in three pieces. When this person emailed Cafepress about the mug being broken, she got the exact same response I got by the exact same person. Well, except for the shirt not fitting part.

Zazzle, here I come.

You can view my model wearing the Grumpasaurus shirt here (grumpy model) and here (not so grumpy model).

What I learned about my child this weekend.

It's pretty amazing; Mateo seems to change so fast these days that I thought I might post weekly updates about the new things I've learned he can do (and some he's been doing for some time, but it takes a master of rearing children to open my eyes and see the baby light).

So these are the things I've learned about my wean this past weekend:

1. He has added "where'd it go? where'd he go? where'd dada go?" to his vocabulary along with "sit," "down," and "up."

I never realized he was saying "where'd it go?" until Grandma informed me. I think this is something he has been saying for some time now, but more the inflection of it. This morning (2:30AM to be exact) he said it clear as day when I dropped his pacifier on the rug when I was attempting to plug him up and get him back to sleep.

My husband has heard "down" before, but I never have until he was sitting at his new desk and I kept asking him if he wanted down, and he would say "no!" When he finally did want down, he would say, "down? down?" while trying to get the chair to move. When he first saw the desk Sunday morning, he walked over to the chair and said, "sit?"

I'm not sure why everything is a question to him, but as long as he's talking, I'm all for it.

2. He pat, pat, pats his lap or belly when watching the part on Little Einsteins where the kids have to pat their laps to get the ship moving.

3. He blows kisses. I've showed him this all weekend, but he never did it until this morning - totally unprovoked at that. My heart melted.

4. He can "sssshhhhh" by putting his finger up to his mouth. He thinks this is funny and doesn't get that it means to be quiet, but regardless, it's really cute.

So, basically, my kid is a genius. And next weekend he'll be even more of a genius because I'm sure there will be more to post. Jealous? Haven't received a blown kiss from you child today? Don't be a hater.

Ah, to be alone again.

To give some history. My husband used to work a nightmarish retail job where he had to be there basically from morning to evening, sometimes not coming home until 7 or 8 PM, and always working Friday and Sunday (and sometimes Saturday). I worked a normal "corporate" job, slinging loan documents about and causing havoc with my bad attitude. I still work a corporate job, but now I sling other stuff, and I still have my bad attitude, but it's toned down a lot since Mateo arrived and my meds kicked in.

Basically I was alone a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean, A LOT. I was lonely. I was sad. I was lonely and sad. I picked up some hobbies that kept me busy, but I was still lonely and sad. I was even more sad when my husband had a day off with me and would constantly be on his cell phone making sure his employees weren't burning down the store and fighting customers. I was probably at the loneliest when the phone would ring at 2 AM and the store's alarm company was calling to tell my husband (the first person on the list to call, of course) that some one just broke into the store, the police have been called, he needs to be there like 15 minutes ago.

Then he got a corporate job, slinging junk and making phone calls, and he has had a regular schedule (give or take days where he's a whopping 15 minutes late getting home, something I can definitely deal with), and is pretty much around all the time now. Well, at least on the weekends he is.

My loneliness is long gone. I have company 24/7, including two annoying and neurotic cats. Now I wish for solitude. I don't want to be lonely, just peaceful and alone. There is a difference.

My husband wanted to go out tonight after work with our work friend, and I was all for it. Why? Because when I got Mateo to sleep, I would have a couple of hours to myself doing what I wanted to do. This time last year, if he had said he wanted to go out after work, which meant I would have to go get Mateo after work, which meant I couldn't go as well, I would be very irate and a tad jealous. I wanted to go out after work too! I wanted to drink a couple of beers and shoot the breeze! I wanted to people watch and make fun of them! I wanted to have some fun with adults!

Then I realized that my tolerance for alcohol is pretty much zilch at this point (over 9 months of not drinking will do that to a gal), I'm tired, I shoot the breeze at work enough as it is, and why people watch when you can write about people...on your blog!

My jealousy soon diminished.

I was looking forward to tonight since the moment we agreed he should go out and I should pick up Mateo. I was going to get that little boy to bed way before 7 PM, have my luxurious two hours or so to read, watch the shows I wanted to watch, blog, fall asleep, listen to music, eat junk food (it is my foolish diet day) - whatever. But especially, I'd be alone. For the most part.

Mateo, of course, had other plans. He was perfectly fine after I picked him up from daycare. He even made a quick pit stop with me at the eye doctor's so I could pick up some contacts to tie me over until my appointment at the end of this month. But as soon as we got inside, he saw a sippy cup, decided he was dying of thirst, and needed water RIGHT NOW, so he flipped out. My time to get him fed and relaxed for the night was limited, so instead of trying to soothe him, I hurried to get stuff put away before I fed him.

Right when we stepped in the door, our phone started ringing. It was my husband asking me to call him back to tell him how Mateo was today, and then he added that he wanted me to look up the BART schedule to see when the last direct train to Fremont was leaving. "If you could do that for me, that would be great...... I love you," he said.

Okay, add that to my list of things to do tonight, I thought. Because trying to get onto my laptop to look up a BART schedule while my child was turning into a real grumpasaurus was not happening at the moment.

My normal routine when getting home is to go into our bedroom and change. When I walked into our bedroom I was greeted with two piles of cat puke. Since I had a screaming toddler on my hands, I couldn't take the time to clean it up.

I grabbed my clothes, went into Mateo's room, changed while he flopped about the floor, grabbed him when I was done, took him into the kitchen and gave him dinner. The food seemed to help him calm down, so when he was finished, I took him into the bathroom to wash his hands and brush his teeth. Then it was PJ time.

We watched Barney (he watched, I surfed the Internet), and when the show was over we went into his room to get ready for bed.

I thought it was going to be easy. He seemed tired. But with his cup of milk he turned into a toddler who just woke up from a nap. All he wanted to do was play and mess around. After a bit, I put my foot down and put him in his crib and left.

I went into our bedroom to write, and listened to Mateo mew. He mewed, then mewed louder, and louder, and then started crying. Lately he's been going poop after we put him down, so I had to go check to make sure he didn't need to be changed. I walked in and he was standing up, crying his little head off.

After a bazillion attempts at trying to get him to calm down, I gave up and gave him more milk. This did the trick and he soon passed out.

When all this was finally done, it was 7:45 PM. My lovely night relatively alone was shot. I wasn't too happy, but what was I going to do. My husband called at bit after 8 PM saying he was in Fremont and was picking up or dinner. Forty minutes later he walked in the door.

So I basically got an hour alone, which is better than nothing, but still.

The topper of the evening was my husband getting mad because I didn't want to watch TV for another 15 minutes and had requested that since it's taken us 20 minutes to watch 7 minutes of 30 Days (pausing to talk), we should just stop it for the evening so I could go to bed. After he got annoyed, I informed him that I can't have a nightlife because I have to get up with Mateo every Saturday and Sunday, and since I never know how long he'll sleep in (average is 5:30 AM), I needed to go to bed early so I wouldn't be so tired in the morning. If he wanted to stay up and watch TV, more power to him, but this lady was tired and ready for bed.

I still don't get the whole watch TV with me thing.

And yes, I cleaned up the cat puke.

This just bugs! (updated)

Last winter I was asked to make a carnival flyer for work. So I did. Here it is.




Then today I was looking at Cool Mom Picks and came across something on the internet that is completely unique and original and not stolen from any other person or company, however, might possibly be printed by another company, but after the many comments I've received, no one's addressed that part of my post and has turned it into a gigantic slam fest on my behalf. But that's okay! Because I can take it. I could so do the thing I found on Cool Mom Picks, which only I would know (and the 60 or so friends of a certain person) based on the example above where I used the exact same font and similar banner courtesy of Illustrator, that it makes me crazy that I don't have my own side business where all I do is slap some one's name on a banner I didn't even create using a font I didn't make.*

Okay, okay, while I have aspirations of learning typography, I can't make fonts either. I download them free.

I mean, look at my cute shirts I just made - three different designs this week alone and I have so many others brewing in my head it makes me nuts there aren't more hours in the day. ...

Alright, I've had my wah-wah session.

Anyone want to front me some money so I can get some samples made FROM MY OWN CREATIONS so I can post them on a web site and wait for people to order them so then I can order them from another company BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ROOM FOR A PRINTING PRESS OR SILK SCREEN MACHINE (or the money for either) in my condo?*

I might be slow in getting things done, but I'm not stupid. Game on.

*blog post adjusted by author of said blog because why give someone free publicity? Which is partly why I never actually named anyone or any web site beside Cool Mom Picks, which is a great web site, by the way. Ah, but I was found regardless. Nothing is sacred. Not even Twitter.

More clothing items coming your way (if you have triplets).

I was asked to come up with a "girlie" design for a onesie. Instead of doing that, I did this.






You can find the girl version here and the boy version here.

When the kindness of strangers really f's you up.

I'm trying to get Mateo to walk more instead of being strolled, especially during less busy times in parking lots in case he gets it in his head to run off or won't hold my hand.

Today he did pretty good leaving daycare and held my hand until we got to the parking lot. It helped that someone was entering the gated area as we left since he gets timid, even with people he sees all the time.

When we got home, I called my husband to see if he needed the stroller tomorrow morning to bring Mateo out to the car or if I could leave it in the car. He said he didn't need it.

As soon as Mateo's feet hit the parking lot pavement, a mischievous grin opened on his face and he started walking off. I was about 2 feet behind him, so I hurried up and took his hand. As with most toddlers, when he's not feeling timid, he thinks he's invincible and king of the world. And so, with the touch of my hand, he turned into a Grumpasaurus, freaked out and melted to the ground.

No coaxing could convince him to get up, so I had to carry him into the condo complex. When we got through the gate to the "greenbelt" as it's known in real estate listings, I put him down again. He immediately freaked out, fell to the ground and screamed his little head off.

Since I don't deal with this too often because I'm not lucky enough to actually take care of my own kid on a day to day basis (notice the weird sarcasm there?), I usually find this funny. I spent some time trying to gently persuade him to get up off the ground and to calm down, but I realized it was pretty futile.

I looked up and noticed one of my fellow condo residents standing in his back yard area, watching me as I was trying to get my screaming Grumpasaurus up off the ground. He waved at me, so I waved back, even though I had never seen him before.

"Does he want candy?" he asked me.

For a split second I began to doubt he was even talking to me. Since I had Mateo, I'm way more friendlier with strangers than I ever was....well....since probably age 2. So I didn't hesitate to wave back. But now that he asked if Mateo wanted candy...maybe he wasn't talking to me. Ah heck, I answered anyway.

"No...he just wants to be picked up," I said.

I decided to ignore the man since my child's face was turning bright red and he was now really freaking out. I picked up Mateo and started heading to our building.

A few seconds later I heard, "Excuse me! Wait!"

I turned around and the man was coming out his back yard area to the pathway. He had something in his hand. Something shiny. Something purple. Something candy bar-shaped.

"Here you go, big boy," he said to Mateo. Mateo grabbed the candy bar and smiled.

"Now you're all smiles," I said. "Say 'thank you."

There was no way Mateo was going to say thank you, but you know, parents should reinforce these things. Plus the whole thing was weird, so I wanted to get out of there.

Mateo had calmed down a whole lot now that he had the candy bar in his hand. I briefly saw an image of a nut on the package, so I already knew there was no way he could have it. You know, because of the peanut butter incident and me telling the doctor I wouldn't give him peanut butter (or any nuts) until he was three? Ya, because of that.

When we got inside, I knew I had to take the candy bar away from him, and I also knew this was going to break his little heart. I braced myself for another freak-out and took the candy bar away from him.

This is what the man gave him: Cadbury "not for a 17-month old child who can barely eat animal cookies without almost choking" chocolate bar.

And....said freak out ensued.

He clung to me, followed me, wailed at me, had to sit on my lap and nowhere else, refused graham crackers, refused water, refused any sort of love as long as it was on his terms. His favorite shows wouldn't calm him down. His woobie wouldn't calm him down. The one thing I knew would calm him down I wasn't about to give him (pacifier), so we both dealt with the situation until it was time to feed him, which just brought on another bout of tears, clinginess and trying to get in between me and the counter - at all costs.

So yeah, for all you weirdos out there, don't give toddlers candy. I know you have nothing but good (and sorta weird) intentions, but just don't. It really screws up a mom's night. Really. Like REALLY.