Four-nado!

Ahem. 

On November 24, this little lady:

turned FOUR!

We threw her a Frozen II birthday party at the movie theater and I sanctimommied it UP. Not only did we see the movie, there was:

- the Frozen II theme -

- a craft/activity -

- a homemade ombre cake (inside and out!) - 

- individual ice cream in party muffin wrappers - 

-and- 

- I used my one party trick of cutting the cake with floss -

You may observe my momming prowess here: 

A very happy birthday girl and her (honestly very happy to do all this) mommy 

Everyone had a wonderful time and the party was a huge success. Then after the very successful party/movie we went out to dinner, where the birthday girl threw a mild tantrum and the baby had french fries and oreos for dinner.  

A carb and sugar filled baby

It's all about the balance I suppose. Whatever.

Happy Birthday Little Turkey!

Pause

Last month my mom went to Paris. Oo La La! Before she left:

Her response: 😆

Because if there was anyone who would end up in a French prison, it would be my mom.

Anyway. She goes to France. She texts her daily adventure pictures at 3 am (which is the most she has kept in contact with me since I lived with my parents in Kentucky) to my sister and I. One of them was this exchange:

I find it hysterical that my sister and I both pause at the possibility of mom winding up in jail.  

Gold Stars

It's official, Girl 2 is allergic to peanuts.

Two weeks ago I gave her a dab of peanut butter* and she quickly broke out in red splotchy hives around her mouth and eye where she touched. We gave her benadryl which cleared it up pretty quick - thank god- (and then took a solid 2 hour nap -also thank god), and the pediatrician referred us to an allergy center for testing.

*I had shown Girl 1 peanut butter jelly time for some reason earlier so pb&j for lunch was sorta a given.

Yesterday was our allergist appointment and she was diagnosed with a peanut allergy (but not tree nuts, so that's a sliver lining). However, to even make it to the appointment, I had to rearrange my work schedule and take sick time. Dr soc was able to make it for most of the appointment but had to leave to go teach his classes while we were waiting to talk allergy action plan. Afterwards she was really clingy (can't say I blame her with her back getting all pricked up) and I couldn't put her down/stop comfort nursing, but I still had to get to work eventually.

So dr soc and I arranged for me to drop her off in his class on my way in. Not ideal, but special circumstances, for a short amount of time, it would be okay. And let's be honest, he's a white male so nothing can really harm him.

As far as we know he hasn't gone viral for being a parent, but the patriarchy is alive and well (thriving even!) so we figure at the very least society gave him another gold star or two for yesterday.

Girl Math

When the baby wakes up in the middle of the night I nurse her back to sleep. Being the middle of the night, I end up falling asleep in the chair in the nursery with her. So I don't get the best night's rest.

The dog has been having stomach issues recently and will whine to go out in the middle of the night, and with me sleeping in aforementioned nursery chair, dr soc has to be the one to get out of bed and let her out. So he doesn't get the best night's rest either.

We're a really cute couple that checks in with each other throughout the day with a text here and there. Stuff like: how's it going? dinner ideas? the status of the girls' potty doings, with some of our most recent check ins being trying to one up each other on who is more tired.

me: 90% of parenting is finding reasons to claim you are more tired

dr soc: truth. And busy

me: 76% is talking about poop

dr soc: 24% is for talking about the other 24%

me (not be outdone): 7% is scheduling sanctimommy activities, 93% is rearranging the schedule to accommodate those activities, and 78% of that is attempting to find a way out of it completely. And 100% of this math will be questioned due to my sex.

dr soc: math is HARD

  

Word Fun (but not really)

One of the two mass shooters* in the past 24 hours had the gall to post online their own racist manifesto before his killing spree. As if his diatribe is important. As if he is important.***

***Nope, not even. Fragile f*cking insignificance is more like it.

You know who else had a manifesto? Hitler. And there was a whole world war declaring that nazis are bad and they lost. The WHOLE WORLD.

So I am breaking down the word manifesto. Ahem. man - i - fest - o

• man: young white male
• i: self-important = hubris
• fest: fester
• o: cutesy sanitizing ending

So in conclusion - a "manifesto" is: a white young male's festering hubris. 

Choke on that.

* I. AM. FURIOUS.**
**for so many reasons

1. that this is another mass shooting and it won't be the last.
2. the inaction of thoughts and prayers.
3. the senate doing nothing. 
4. fragile masculinity and the patriarchy continuing to get away with actual murder. 
5. the NRA's propaganda. 
6. fill-in-another-abhorrent-reason here. 

ROAR!

Aaaaaand - Little Lion is 1! (also because she's the 2nd kid I'm not as on top of the memory updates, sorry my darling, mommy loves you!)

Anyway- after several weekends of getting distracted and a false alarm- July 23 2018 we left for the hospital at 7 pm, and dr soc yelled "another girl!" at 9:57 pm!

proving my maternal instinct absolutely incorrect 

and in 365+ days became:

one year old!

She's also:

a great giver of looks

I call this my Blue Steel. Or I'm probably pooping
(she was pooping - also a great burper too!)

Super chill

S'up? (don't those cheeks just kill you?)

Costume embracing

Rarity of My Little Pony (as decreed by big sister) 

Big Sister Adoring

pictured: bonding between sisters or: world domination plotting session
could go either way

Smiling

girl 2 gives girl 1 some of her biggest smiles

Super snugly:

Daddy and big sister?! My favorites! 

Self feeding:

this girl puts everything, and I mean everything, in her mouth

Dog feeding:

Oh hi Jules! You want some cheerios?

Grocery shopping aficionado 

All the blue pouches please mommy!

Laughing. So SO much laughing!

and talented! look what I can do! 

Ice cream loving

she screams if you don't give it to her fast enough

Most perfect little girl

absolutely perfect

She made our family a million times even more happy than we ever dreamed

two perfect little girls

my heart didn't know it could be this full

#trope

Happy Birthday Little Lion! ROAR!

Specialty Tupperware

A recent tweet thread of mine:

Like I said, it was from the dollar store, super bendy and wasn't all that great. It wasn't my good one.* But still. It's the principle of it. 

*which now I definitely won't bring in

Seriously. YOU. DON'T. TAKE. SOMEONE'S. SPECIALTY. TUPPERWARE.

Hard Day

Today is the 4th anniversary of my dad's death, but this year it's weighing on me a lot since having to explain that to my 3 year old.

I was telling her that Grandma C (my mom) lives in Kentucky. She asked if Grandpa Steve lived there too, because Grandma S and Papa live together in Ohio. I told her he used to live there, but now he's in heaven. And because she's 3-
3: Can he come visit us?
me: No honey, he can't. And we won't see him right now, at least for a while.
3: Can we see him?
me: No sweetheart. No, not for a long time.
3: Why?
me: Well, um, he died a few years ago, before you were born.
3: Why did he die?
me: -deep breath- he was very, very sick.
3: Did he take any medicine?
me: He did, but he was so sick medicine couldn't help.
3: Why?
me: Sometimes people get so sick medicine won't work anymore.
3: Oh. Will he come back? Will he wake up?
me: No honey, that's not how death is. When someone dies, their spirit is gone.
3: What's that?
me: umm, a spirit is... Well, you know how you can see and hear things? And you talk, breath, and laugh? All those things?
3: yes!
me: well, all that together, that's a spirit. So my daddy's spirit is...is...it's gone sweetie.
3: oh.

By then I was pretty drained and I was starting to well up, so dr soc quickly changed the conversation and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.

--later that night as we were tucking her into bed--

3: Mommy? Were you sad when your daddy died?
me: Yes sweetie. Very very sad. 

I still am. Miss you daddy.

Goodbye Bailey

My first dog Bailey crossed the Rainbow Bridge Thursday morning. 

She was almost 12 and had the best life a best friend could have had. She had a tumor in her nose and it spread to her brain or a clot paralyzed her back legs, so her wonderful family let her go and were kind enough to let me know.

I wrote Bailey this goodbye (even though she couldn't read or spell 😊) when she got her 2nd family in 2013, so here it is again for her forever goodbye. 

From the Muppets take Manhattan

Saying goodbye, going away

Seems like goodbye's such a hard thing to say.

Touching a hand paw, wondering why

It's time for saying goodbye

Saying goodbye, why is it sad?

Makes us remember the good times we've had

Much more to say, foolish to try

 It's time for saying goodbye

Don't want to leave, but we both know

Sometimes it's better to go

Somehow I know we'll meet again


Not sure quite where, and I don't know just when

You're in my heart, so until then

Wanna smile, 

Wanna cry

Saying goodbye

La la la, la la la la la

It's time for saying goodbye

Goodbye my dearest, dearest Bailey. Thank you for being my best friend the past 6 years. Thank you for your unconditional love, fierce loyalty and unwavering support. I'll never forget you and I will always miss you. I know you'll love and take care of your new family as much as you did me.  

I love you, forever. Goodbye my Bailey. Goodbye.

I took care of them Momma! Thank you for doubling my family! 

I love you too Momma. I love you too.

Goodbye Bailey. Giving you up made my heart heavy, but you lightened it by how happy you made all of us. Your family doubled in awesomeness and you made them so, so happy just by being you. Thank you for taking care of and fiercely loving us humans.   

Rest In Peace my sweet puppy.

Girls

As much as I love being a girl and the color pink, I really don't like to gender my girls that much with trying to smash patriarchy and all that. What do we want? Usable pockets! Equal Pay! Autonomy over our own bodies! When do we want it? Two hundred years ago!

Right. So. A few days ago I had my hands on the highchair tray playing with girl 2, and she develops those fine motor skills by gripping onto my engagement ring and squealing. And yesterday girl 1 had a big potty training accident at the sitter's so that even her shoes got wet. So on the way home it was "mommy I need new shoes! Lets go shopping for shoes!"

So I said to dr soc: we have one girl squealing over diamonds and the other wants to go shoe shopping. We have girls!

Waiting on my Book Deal

All library workers are writing the Next Great American novel as we sit around and read all day. True fact. Now, I have no disillusions my book will be the Next Great American Novel, but I do have over-inflated sense of importance that the world needs to hear my musings so I am absolutely deserving of a book deal. For these 2 reasons:

Reason 1: I have a blog. And I started my blog at the tail end of men everyone with a blog gets a book deal. And this blog has many, many components of a book deal. Such as:

1. It is about my real life exploits and I am an extremely relatable heroine/protagonist.
2. I express my opinions in snarky hilarious ways, because I write like I talk and I make people laugh All. The. Time. rehashing the aforementioned real life exploits. Whimsical loquacious bloggers get book deals.
3. It has a built in story arc of a book deal. (broken engagement→dating→meeting dr soc→ marrying dr soc→best/worst wife ever→pregnancy→mommy)
4. The built-in story arc from my real life exploits have made whyeverythingshouldbepink several 'types' of blogs that get book deals. While mostly a 'lifestyle' blog it also a 'dating' blog, a running 'fitness' blog, a dog 'pet' blog, a bubble of tulle 'bride' blog, a  married, pregnant lady 'personal' blog, and it's currently 64% hilarious/heartwarming/jerky adventures of my children (and the stockpile of drafts to prove it) 'mommy/parenting' blog.  And mommy/parenting blogs always get a book deal. 

But like I said, I started at the tail end of the blog = book deal. By the time I had the content and story arc of a book deal, that ship had mostly sailed. Maybe. Sigh. But!

Reason 2: Twitter. I mastered the art of eloquently voicing my thoughts in 140 characters or less without using text talk like an uncultured swine. I have been (and continue to do so frequently) tweeting well before everyone with a slightly amusing/witty/prolific twitter feed also receives a book deal. Plus now that Twitter allows 280 characters and I finally figured out how to put returns in my tweets, it's like I've been writing nothing but mini novels. Maybe the Next Great American Novel even.

So. With those 2 reasons I really can't help to wonder: Where is my book deal?

Secrets

Dr soc took Little Turkey shopping with him for my Christmas gift, and reminded her don't tell mommy which she took to heart. She was well aware this was a secret. They get home from shopping and she is so excited. While daddy gets things out of the car she comes right over to me with her little hands covering the biggest smile on her face. She leans in and very emphatically whispers:

girl 1: Mommy! We didn't get you ponies!* --pause--
(dr soc walks in the house) 
girl 1: We got you a mug! 
dr soc: (face palm, laughing hysterically) Little Turkey! I just told you that was a secret! 
me: (laughing hysterically) That's why she whispered!

We were both laughing so hard that she actually started to look a little unsure that maybe she hadn't  done the right thing. I felt bad about that, so still giggling I beckoned her over and stage whispered if she wanted to know what we got daddy for Christmas. She nodded eagerly.
me: okay! We got him a pineapple! But shh! It's a secret!
girl 1: Okay! (turns around to face dr soc and whispers emphatically with hands over her mouth again) Daddy! We got you a pineapple!   

*Her gift suggestion. Also her suggestion for what we should get daddy, what the baby wanted and what she asked Santa Claus for. Got to hand it to her, she covered all her bases so that one way or another she was going to get those ponies.