Another Mom / Dad difference.

I know what month and week Mateo is as far as his age goes. He's 8 1/2 months old as of Saturday. My husband, on the other hand, constantly bumps up his age by 2 weeks, so right now Mateo is 9 months in his head. Why is that?

Cynical me.

We went to the pumpkin patch today, and the first thing I thought was, Wow, the pumpkin patch is really just a big dirt field with pumpkins of different shapes, sizes and colors scattered all over the dirt. With some haystacks and corn stalk bunches placed here and there.

Then I stepped back and looked at it through Mateo's eyes and mind, a mind that will not remember this day at all and was probably thinking, Wow! Look at all the round, brightly colored balls all over that dirt I would love to take a handful of and stick in my mouth!

By the way, he does not like the feel of hay, and refused to sit on a haystack to get his picture taken. Instead, he grabbed for his Daddy like some horrible monster was trying to get a hold of him.

Needless to say, we didn't stay too long. I guess a huge part of being a parent is pretending.

Dirty, filthy pumpkin loving.

Jack's Big Music Show.

I've thought about posting about Jack's Big Music Show a bazillion times, but never have. I love this show, and luckily, so does Mateo. He can watch this endlessly. Well, okay, he really can't because his attention span isn't the greatest, but once he hears the theme song starting, he will stop whatever it is he's doing, army man crawl himself towards that TV and start chatting away to Jack, Melsie Boy (really Mel) and Mary.

I discovered this show because of Comcast's "On Demand" feature, oh, some time when Mateo was 4 months old and could care less about what he was watching on TV. I loved the show for three main reason:

1. It is completely centered around all kinds of music and musical instruments, and one thing I want Mateo to love as he grows up is music. Ideally, I would like him to learn several musical instruments, but that's really up to him.

2. The puppets and set design are the best. I think if I could change anything about myself and life, I would have gone into puppetry and puppet design.

3. The conversations and words used are great -- lots of spiffys and swells, and well, that's just spiffy and swell with me.

One day when I had the show on in our bedroom, a new character came on to fix an instrument, Dr. Strings, and I was thinking to myself, that guy sounds just like Andrew Bird, who just happens to be one of my favorite artists of all time. But how weird would that be, I thought. Just too weird. But as the credits rolled, Andrew Bird was listed. Not only was I surprised to realize how skinny he was, but that he wasn't British. Not sure why I thought he would be British, but he I did, and well, he's not. He's also not very good looking. Sorry Andrew Bird, if you ever google yourself and my blog posting is listed and you just happen to read this.

So now we watch Jack's Big Music Show all the time. We're just starting to watch Little Einsteins, but I don't like it that much. Actually, I'm not really liking many kid's shows and I'm not really looking forward to Mateo wanting to watch shows that I find totally annoying.

If anyone out there knows where to get official Jack's Big Music Show merchandise (besides the DVD and CD), then please let me know! So far, I can't find anything, and I would love a set of Jack characters for my desk at work. Oops, I meant for Mateo.

Sign of what's in store for me.

Yesterday Mateo and I went to Kaiser to get our flu shots. Me, being a first time taking my kid to Kaiser to get a flu shot Mom, didn't realize I would be there for well over an hour, waiting for him to get the shot, and then having to wait to see if he's allergic to the shot, before we could go home. I really thought it would take only a few minutes because that's how it is with the adult flu shots.

As per the norm, Mateo attracts attention because of his hair and his eyes and how cute he is (oops, was that being too honest?). One lady entertained him while we were waiting for the shots, asking me questions about him (she thought he was one -- must be the hair) and commenting about his eyes and hair and, well, how cute he is (and he is! -- oops, there I go again). She also agreed with me that he's a nosey boy who thinks everyone in the world is there for him and to pay attention to only him. He's got to be up in every one's business, it seems, and this has been confirmed by the daycare ladies. I think he gets this from me. I too, like to up in every one's business, but being an adult, I can't do it like he does. But I do find my sneaky ways.

After his shot, we got to sit down. A lady sat down in front of us with her daughter, probably a month younger than Mateo or very close to his age. The little girl began to stare at Mateo, and I'm assuming Mateo was staring at her because she was paying attention to him, which is what he expects at this point in his life. The lady then stood her daughter up, and she starting taking baby steps (with her help) towards Mateo. Mateo then got all excited, so I stood him up so he could interact with the little girl. He then started babbling about something to her, making her smile. They both started trying to grab at each other (more Mateo than her...sigh), and Mateo kept up his chattering. The little girl was all smiles.

It was then that I realized I was doomed. My boy is a playboy. He's suave, debonair, a cheeser. In other words, he takes after his Daddy to a certain extent. And it took me many years to remove some of his Daddy's cheesy "I'm the man" attitude, and now my cute little son is the same way. Daddy had some pretty good lines when he was younger, and apparently, Mateo does as well. Too bad I don't know what he's saying. Mateo, not Daddy. Although sometimes I don't know what his Daddy is saying.

Shall I just lock the door now? Never let him out again?

Top 10 things I love about Mateo right at this moment.

1. His determination to do whatever he wants, when he wants, which right now is taking the sides off his play mat and chewing on them.
2. His laugh.
3. His smile.
4. His need to hold my hand when he's going to sleep.
5. His smiley eyes.
6. His chatter.
7. His energy.
8. His army man crawl.
9. His excitement at life.
10. His innocence.

Jeans.

Out of three pairs of jeans I purchased at Kohls yesterday, only one pair actually looks okay with my boots. So now I'm on a quest to buy two more pairs of those same jeans, but in different colors. I am determined to have more than one pair of jeans that I want to wear, and I'm determined to NOT keep jeans I know I will not wear for whatever reason (too long, too "relaxed" and makes me look like I'm swimming in jeans). I will win this battle of the jeans. I vow to no longer buy clothes that sorta fit and or "will" fit when I lose all my fat and chubs. Maybe then I'll start mysteriously losing weight?

Don't make fun of me when I'm secretly wearing my full panel maternity jeans.

I have an issue with pants. I really don't have any that I like to wear, that are comfortable, that fit sorta okay if not perfectly. I went out and bought some capris a few months ago, one of them being a pair of levis capris that never fit me and were too big, but they were comfortable, so I kept wearing them. In fact, I wore them so much, that yesterday, when I grabbed them to put on, I realized the butt was so worn out that there were a couple of big holes. And therefore, I was forced to retire them to the garbage. The butt material was so thin that it was bound to happen. The only problem with it happening yesterday was that I needed to wear comfortable clothes because of something I had to do at work. And I had no other jeans or loose pants I could wear. I was going to be sweaty and dusty and dirty, and so I didn't want to wear my dressy capris and get them all funked up. What to do, what to do, I thought.

Ah, yes. I still have all my maternity clothes!

So I grabbed my full panel dark denim Gap jeans -- the only long pair of jeans I can wear at the moment due to too many lumps and bumps -- and I put them on. They actually fit quite nicely in the legs, and of course, with the full panel of elastic forgiveness around my belly, they fit there as well. With a long tshirt and hoody, I was good to go. Now one would ever know that I was wearing maternity pants.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that wearing full panel maternity pants and underwear that actually fits correctly (yes, I still dabble in the maternity underwear as well -- why spend the money when I have a drawer full of perfectly good underwear that are a size two or three smaller than I actually am and will some day fit into again?) would cause my underwear to keep rolling down as the pants started to slip down. See, I'm not pregnant and do not have a big, round belly to keep the full panel up. I ended up spending most of my day, as I was moving boxes around and delivering things to people, yanking up my pants and trying to unroll my underwear top so I would feel sort of comfortable.

And, because I have no more humility left in me, I of course told my boss about it because it is, in fact, quite funny that I'm wearing my full panel maternity pants when I'm no longer pregnant.

Later on in the day, when I was really starting to feel annoyed with having to yank up my pants all the time, I took a walk over to the other side of the floor to give my husband the keys to one of our cars. As I was walking back down the aisle, a co-worker was walking towards me, and he started waddling like a pregnant lady. I could only assume he was doing that because that's how I looked going down the aisle. And this made me shocked and very sad. Especially since I was secretly wearing my full panel maternity jeans.

So I informed him, "If that's really how I look, then I need to go get a gym membership after work."

He, being a male, even if he is gay, didn't get my point and just started talking about random stuff. The whole while, I was thinking, man, I'm so sad. Soooo sad. Now I wish I wasn't wearing my full panel maternity jeans.

With that said, I'm going back on the wagon. I informed my husband I was going to eat only fruit and veggies. And that I need to buy long pants this weekend. Preferably without a panel.

I couldn't have said it any better.

I love this post from Jennifer aka binky bitch. For me, add in a full time job, remove some of the daily child rearing responsibilities, and I still don't have enough time. I want the time, and when I suddenly get some extra time (Mateo going to sleep early at night), I'm so lost that all I can do is watch TV or fall asleep, only to wake up and think, why didn't I take advantage of that extra hour last night and actually do something I wanted to do?? Like start that web site I've been talking about. Or work on my resume. Or pay some bills. Or make some jewelry. Or clean. Or put up the last baby gate. Or or oroooooooooorrrrrrrrrrr.

Hey, but I did clean the guest bathroom Tuesday night, which is something I haven't done since I went back to work. Cleaning the bathroom on a Tuesday night, not the whole cleaning thing in general. I'm not that bad. Well, okay. I am.

Baby proofing...

I've already wrote about my dislike towards baby proofing and how I'd rather be doing a bazillion other things than spending my time screwing in latches and tucking away wires. Well, that was the first and last weekend we baby proofed. Then, well, Mateo decided he wanted to crawl, and well, yeah, we had to finish.

After my husband told my co-worker that we were basically finished with baby proofing except putting up two more gates, I realized that unless I finished the baby proofing, no baby proofing would occur. That is, until Mateo totally hurt himself by opening a drawer or cabinet door and knocking something on his head.

(Side note: Last Saturday I asked my husband to watch Mateo for tops 5 minutes while I used the bathroom. Mateo was in his room, which is fairly harmless, but does still need to be tidied up for his safety. To seconds after I closed the bathroom door, I heard a crash and then a loud wail. When I went back in, I found out that Mateo had pulled all this stuff off of the bookcase and onto his head. Hmmm.)

So I spent a good chunk of Sunday sweating up a storm in the kitchen, screwing in latches on all the doors and drawers while my husband took Mateo off for a visit. Granted, I told my husband to do this, but still, the point being, I finished it.

Now today when my husband was in the kitchen, putting dishes away, he asked me, "Is this broken? Why do some work and some don't?"

He was talking about the latches.

I ignored him.

A minute or two passed by.

"Did you hear me?" he asked.

I nodded.

"So that's it? Are you going to say something? Are they broken?"

"This is what I'm going to say. I spent most of my Sunday screwing in latch after latch after latch, and now I'm feeling like you're criticizing me about how I installed them, and because of that, no, I'm not going to answer you and I'm going to ignore you. If you don't like how I did it, you can change it, but you better do it quickly."

He got the point. He no longer asked me if they were broken. And by the way, they aren't. I just opened the door he had a hard time opening, and you just have to push the latch down a bit. I'm sure I could have done a better job, but I was hot and sick of baby proofing, and the point is that Mateo can't get into the cabinets now, and if we, as adults, can't figure it out either, then that's our problem.

I guaranty that the latches will not be changed.

Like a bag lady with a baby on the hip.

My mom buys bulk items for me at Costco each week, which means I have to go pick them up from her house, which means a fun visit from Mateo for Grandma. Yesterday Mateo and I had our visit and left with our stuff, which consisted of a package (not from Costco, although I'm sure they sell packages), a big thing of paper towels and two double containers of powder formula (my child has turned into an eating machine). Plus I had my child, a stroller, a diaper bag, the daycare bag, two 12-packs of soda and myself. And my purse. And some baby blankets. And now that I think about it, I think I left his pullover in the car. Oh well.

I had called my husband to tell him that there would be things in the car for him to bring in, and after an awkward conversation, I determined this irritated him. So, me being me, I decided to bring everything in on my own.

Mateo had passed out in the car, so I was hoping I could use his stroller to load everything on it and hold him while using my other hand to steer the stroller into the condo complex. By doing this, I would have to get through a locked gate and locked door before getting to our door.

Of course Mateo woke up when I was getting him out of his car seat, so I now had to hold a wiggly infant while trying to drive a stroller that was resembling a homeless person's stroller of possessions.

I got to the first locked door, which is the gate that goes from the parking lot to the inside of the complex, when I saw this lady walking towards the gate. Never to be one to assume anyone will actually help me, I managed to get the gate open and the stroller into the doorway when the lady ran over while exclaiming I had my hands full. Understatement, but yes, true.

She then proceeded to grab hold of the stroller and pull it through with enough force to cause the wheels to fall into the dirt, off the path. While I stared at the stroller, thinking, how did that help me, you darn stupid condo lady (my husband and I call her that or the crazy condo lady who we desperately try to avoid at all times because she's annoying), she was running at the mouth about some service she runs and how I should do it because then I wouldn't have to do what I was doing today and it would be wonderful and soooo helpful.

But wait. Don't I have my hands full plus a stroller now half in the dirt and half on the path and I have to somehow get it back on the path because you helped me? And you're doing what? Trying to sell me something? That I don't want? Cause all I want to do is get into my condo, put my stuff away and feed my wiggly not to mention very tired baby?

So instead of really listening to her, I worked on getting the stroller back on the path, and when my silence didn't clue her in about what she just did to me and that I wasn't really listening to her at all, I said, "Whhhaattt? What service? What?"

I turned around and looked at her and noticed that since it was now evening, she had caked on the 10 lbs of make-up she puts on her face and was all dolled up for some sexy exercising at the condo gym (her haunt, which is one of the reasons why I haven't decided I should use our condo gym to try to lose my chubs). Usually I see her in the mornings when I'm working at home, and for some reason she doesn't feel it's necessary to put make-up on in the mornings, only at night. Either way, she doesn't look too hot.

"I run a personal health service blah blah blah home," she said. I stopped listening again.

"Oh, no, that's okay," I said.

"You wouldn't have to do this all the time," she said, indicating the stroller and my wiggly child.

So. I barely get to leave the house, so you're suggesting I eliminate one of the few times I have an excuse to get out into the world? Plus limit the times Mateo gets to see his Grandma? What I'd rather have offered to me is a maid service. Or a personal chef. Or a masseuse. Or a cat trainer. And the only reason I was doing what I was doing is because I assumed my husband didn't want to do it, and hey, I'm a woman of the 2000's, I can load up a stroller like no one's ever seen before. I don't need him! Well, okay, I do.

"Oh, that's okay, my mom buys this stuff for me, so it's not really a problem," I said.

"But it would be delivered to you!!! For free!!!!!" she said.

"That's okay. Grandma gets to see him, he gets to see Grandma; if I stopped that, then Grandma would be mad," I said. And yes, I was trying to escape this whole time, it's just hard to do when you're rolling with loaded stroller and wiggly child and are being talked to by pancake make-up sexy exercise lady.

"But it would be delivered to YOU!!!!" she said again. Apparently I'm either dumb, deaf or a hard sell.

"I'm hardly home," I said. Which is not true. And I think she knows that. But oh well. When nothing else works, lie.

"Oh, we can schedule it around when you are home!!!!" she said.

"No, thanks, I'm really okay," I said and finally got momentum with the stroller and began to walk away.

"IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND, JUST LET ME KNOW!!!" she yelled at my back.