On Aging

I will never understand why people dread birthdays as they get older. I don't. I love to celebrate my birthday. The excitement I feel in the week leading up to it builds more and more each year. I refuse to look at life as though I'm waking up every morning, marching along to my eventual, imminent demise.

No, my friends. Life is a celebration. I've made it another year! I get to enjoy the best of the world, as long as I have the motivation and opportunity to seek it! Tomorrow, I will get to say I've enjoyed 32 years on this earth.

And I couldn't be happier.

Sure, my physical attributes have changed. I ache a little more in the mornings. I depend on my caffeine addiction to spark my awareness each day. I require a little more TLC in the bathroom mirror to feel acceptable to walk out the door.

But I don't care.

I'm alive. I get to hear birds sing, rain fall, and car horns honk. I get to smell cake baking, stinky diapers, and salty ocean air (though that last one not as often as I'd like--and the one before more frequently than I'd like!). I get to see the enjoyment on my daughter's face when she swings at the playground.

And I'm grateful.

Birthdays are truly milestones. They keep track of the memories of your life for you.

• At 20, I began dating the man who would become my husband.
• At 23, I graduated college.
• At 24, I got married.
• At 29, I had my first child

Sure, my twenties were amazing. I look back on them fondly. But now, as I complete my 31st year, I realize that my thirties have the potential to be even better, as long as I seize the moments I'm blessed with every day. I have to experience life while I'm given the opportunity to do so.

So happy birthday, to me. Help me celebrate, I'll never groan and moan at you for bringing it up--in fact, I'll thank you for remembering my special day.

~CSM

Where did the summer go?

Apparently, when the weather warmed up, I just completely forgot all about this blog. No worries, I'm back at it strong now!

My darling daughter M has reached new heights in her 2 year old glory. Her grasp of the English language is, at times, close to surpassing mine, it seems. I stare in amazement at least once a week with the things she comes up with that I don't expect her to know already.

Example:
Set the scene: We are in the car, driving to my parents' house. During this trip, we pass a local state park, that usually has deer hanging out eating trees, and grass, or whatever it is they eat, when we drive by.

M: "Mommy, where all da deer?"

Me: "I don't know, sweetie, they might be sleeping."

M: "In da forest?"

Me: craning my neck around to look at her in amazement. "Yes...probably in the forest." (Inner monologue: "HOLY SHEISTA, where did she learn that deer live in a forest?! What two year old knows that?!)

M: "I go in da forest and find dem and wake dem up."

Me: "Okay, sweetie, you do that."

She is also very obsessed with music. My sister in law was kind enough to make me a CD of all of M's favorites, which has been both a blessing and a curse. I have no idea what popular music is on the radio anymore, because I mainly hear one song, on repeat, every single time we're in the car. And that song is....Gotye's "Somebody I Used to Know."

No...seriously. The kid LOVES that song. I'm sure over the summer I've heard it at LEAST five thousand times. But that's not even the funny part. She's seen the video, so she calls the song "Naked Weird Guy."

Do you know how awkward it is, when we go somewhere that music is playing, and M loudly exclaims, "I wanna hear Naked Weird Guy!"

Facepalm. I can only imagine what other people think when they hear her yelling that. I'm surprised CPS hasn't shown up at my front door. Of course, I would be the mother to have the child who perfectly enunciates all of her words, thus making her loud demands completely understandable to any passing shmoe within hearing distance.

I can hardly punish her for it...or even request she call it something else. He is, after all, a naked, weird guy singing a song, being painted. She's just being observant, I guess. <enter chagrined face here>


Plus, isn't that what kids are for? To embarass their parents in public? M got the memo at an early age...


~CSM

Funny Words

Miss M has started putting small phrases together, and her vocabulary has just EXPLODED.

She's starting to really parrot everything that is said, especially me. I've had to really watch what I say, lest she start walking around saying the s-word everywhere. (That happens to be my personal favorite cuss word, my go-to when things aggravate me.)

Last night, for example, at dinner, M was refusing to eat her sweet potatoes, so I pointed at her plate and said, "eat that!" To which she promptly replied, "Eat tat!" and poked her finger in her food.

In addition to watching what I say, I'm having to learn an entirely new language. I couldn't understand why M kept saying "huh?" until I heard myself repeating that word over and over when she would say something I couldn't comprehend.

Like this morning. As I put her in her car seat, she kept saying, "boody! boody!" I said, "take your passy out, I can't understand you." She pulled it out and said, "booty! booty!" To which I replied "huh? wha? say it again!" Finally, she got frustrated, blew out a big breath, and said, "BOOTY SINGIN!"

Oh...."birdie singing."

I wonder if Google Translate has a "toddler to English" version?

~CSM

Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

Today's tornadic weather conditions have me reflecting on one of my biggest fears of life: inclement weather.

I was traumatized at a young age by watching "The Wizard of Oz." What should have been a lighthearted romp through the dreams of Dorothy fostered the hot mess that would become my storm phobia.

As a child, I was scared of tornados (tornadoes?). As an adult I'm petrified of them.

The very destructive nature of these awful things is what scares me the most. I don't worry so much about my underwear ending up in the neighbor's tree so much as I worry about ME ending up in the neighbor's tree, broken, battered, and bleeding. To say NOTHING of worrying that my tiny helpless defenseless child gets ripped from my arms and into the swirling vortex of destruction that dropped out of the sky like a surprise party gone horribly wrong.

Melodramatic much?

I have been pretty good with these storms as of late, but it's also been winter. HAHA. Now that I'm a mom, I'm having trouble finding a balance between being scared out of my wits and not showing that fear to M. So far, she's been too little to really interpret the fact that I'm terrified, and only once have I gotten her out of her bed to sleep in the house's half-bath. (My next house MUST have a basement.)



Inevitably, these storms almost always arrive just in time for me to be the only adult in the house with M, as my husband is usually on duty for his 24-hour stint. At least when he's home there's one rational parent in the house. I'm afraid that if we have a particularly bad spring this year, poor M is going to realize the full extent of her mom's crazy, or worse, develop her own personal phobia of twisters. I may have genetically passed on my worst traits to M, like my temper, my impatience, and lack of ability to be out in the sunshine without SPF80, but I'm hoping to save her from this particular impairment.

So I have to play it cool around her from now on. Unless K is home, and then I can leave her with daddy while I fall apart in another room.

~CSM

Gator Chomp

I'm horrified. My child is a biter! She bit another kid FOUR times at daycare yesterday and left marks!!

What do I do?! She's 19 months old...so I don't know her motivation behind why she's doing what she's doing. Do I bite her back? Spank? Time out? Stern talking to?

Funny part is...after she bit this child, he didn't even cry--SHE did. I guess you have to be tough to be a friend of M. She bit him on the forehead and left a mark! WHO DOES THAT!?

We roughhouse, M and I, but NOTHING like that. She's a tough kid--but I don't want her to be a bully!! 

I love my sitter. I don't want M to be kicked out of daycare. But at the same time, other parents shouldn't have to worry MY kid is going to chew on their kid.

I love my baby...I love that she loves to love others. I just wish she understood that "love" doesn't mean "bite."

(NOT MY KID--But funny!)





I don't want to have to outfit her for a muzzle, so I'm taking suggestions!!

~CSM

Who let you loose in public like that?

I forgot to pack a lunch today, and being that I'm dieting right now, I thought it best to go to the grocery store in town and purchase items to make a salad for lunch.

I must have somehow missed the memo that today was "leave your house wearing your pajama pants" day.

I kinda get why teenagers do it. Maybe it's a fashion statement. Teenagers are the ONLY ones, in my opinion, who CAN get away with wearing pajamas outside their houses.

I, however, saw two different grown women wearing fleece pajama pants at the grocery store.

I'm going to hazard a guess to say the first lady had an excuse, because she was likely clinically crazy. She had about 40 cans of cat food, a bag of dog food, and a snickers bar in her purchase. I'm not saying cat people are nuts, but based on her purchase, and her conversation with the cashier ("Miss Kitty likes this type of food, but I have to sneak in some other types too to make sure she has a well-balanced diet") I'd say she's the quintessential cat lady who lives alone in an apartment with 5 or 6 cats and makes them wear sweaters and treats them like her grandchildren. (Did I mention she was in her 60s?)

She also smelled like pot. She may not have been crazy, but just stoned. I can't say for sure, but the combination of these elements excused her, in my book, for wearing pajamas outside her house.

The second girl, I saw walking in as I was leaving. If you are over the age of 12, you should NOT be wearing "My Little Pony" pajamas. Especially OUT of your HOUSE. But, she wore them proudly, strutting into the grocery store with (presumably) her devoted boyfriend hanging on her arm. She looked to be in her 30s.

A) What self-respecting woman would wear My Little Pony PJs?
B) What self-respecting woman would wear them in public?
C) What self-respecting man would be seen with a woman who would wear that in public?
D) WHY!?

I do not claim to be a fashionista by any means. I'm lucky to remember to match my shoes to my outfit every day. But I do know better than to leave my house looking like I LITERALLY just rolled out of bed.

Which leads me to my next topic.

All criminals smell the same. (I am a civilian employee for a police department, in case you are wondering)

All of them have this same, ripe, "foot rubbed on a butt" smell. Close your eyes and repeat that phrase. It says it all.

That smell can permeate a small building in a matter of minutes. (Especially when they're required to remove their shoes while in the holding cell) It clings to your clothes, your hair, and the hairs in your nostrils. It's miserable.

So, out of curiousity, I asked a police officer WHY they all smell the same. I was told this:

"They don't go home and put on pajamas. They likely sleep in whatever they're wearing. You're smelling days of just going somewhere and laying down their head. Baths are not a regular thing, because they don't likely have a permanent place to stay."

The girl that walked by me going into the grocery store had that "foot on a butt" smell to her. Which made me come full circle to realize that a) she'd probably worn those same pajamas for days; and b) she could possibly be a criminal.

I left before I could get my confirmation. Hopefully she was going to buy soap, or deodorant or perfume or SOMETHING.

~CSM

Baby Love

Miss M has been so snuggly with me the last few days. I'm trying to relish it now, because I know in about 12 or 13 years she's going to want nothing to do with me.  Her being a teenager scares the living daylights out of me, and I know time will fly through these next years, but I can't fathom her being a moody, belligerent teen, addicted to a cell phone (or whatever the technology is in 10 years), moping around the house, and refusing to clean her room.

It seems eons away, but I know it'll be here before I know it. As a result, I'm soaking up all her squishy goodness now. I request "smooches" from her all the time, to which she is always willing to oblige, even if she's in the middle of doing something else. The funny part is, I never know what I'm going to get...

A closed mouth, tight-lipped quick peck on the cheek is about 70% of the time.

If she's laughing, I get the open-mouthed, slobbery raspberry smooch on the cheek. That's the other 25% of the time.

I was graced with a new one the other night. One I'm calling the "overexcited puppy smooch."

She licked my mouth. She leaned in, and at the last minute stuck her tongue out and slimed me.

And then proceeded to laugh hysterically when I went "bleeechhh!!" and wiped my mouth off.

The hysterical laughter made me wonder if it was premeditated.

~CSM