baptism

Happy New Year 

and

Happy Baptism to Sebastian Xavier!

around the kitchen

toppy to botty

~

S squared. Aunt Sarah and Sebastian

fancy that

mom got into grandma's lipstick

younger brothers when they were younger

"kee kee kee kee!!" (cookie)

S squared again

I thought I was the daughter.

I bought these high wasted flare jeans at H&M when Jessica visited in November.  I thought they looked like old school Mudd jeans (aka unflattering) but she assured me they didn't. I trusted her because she is a trillion times more fashionable than I can ever hope to be. 

 Maybe I shouldn't have trusted her judgment because when I walked out wearing them this morning Simon gave me one look and said, 

"oh, so mom jeans are fashionable now?"

and did a lot of staring and laughing and more staring and even hiked his pants up to his ribcage to try and emulate my look. 

His jabs I could handle but when my mom walked out and took a gander and (seriously) said, 

"oh, are those Not Your Daughter's Jeans?"

I knew Jessica had led me astray. 

ahoy

We are hailing from my home state of New Mexico today.  Shortly after I diligently wrote and scheduled Simon's birthday post ... I also fell victim to the vomplague.  I think Sebastian was the only Patton spared from the nasty but I'm not sure how we would differentiate spit up from throw up.  So we missed our early morning flight and spent the day scaring Julia half to death while we took turns sprinting to the porcelain. We rallied and compromised with Southwest to not have to pay an arm and a leg but merely one bulging bicep to change our flight to yesterday evening.  We thought we were over the worst of it but Julia had an explosive issue with something that rhymes with tryarreah and managed to soil my entire outfit and one whole couch last night. I've decided I prefer throw up clean up to that. 

Onward and no more bodily fluid prattle. 

Promise.

So now we're enjoying a belated Christmas with gorgeous weather, generous sibling/parent babysitters, and gorgeous weather. Simon and I enjoyed a leisurely mall walk earlier sans offspring and we have plans to take in one of my brother's basketball games tonight also sans 'spring. 

All is well and good.

Merry, Merry.

golden boy

Happy Golden Birthday Simone!

Thanks for being such a wonderful dad, husband and comedian.

I'm sorry that Julia passed along her wretched vomplague to you and that we are braving an insanely early flight followed by another less early but still early flight with our tyrannical offspring.

Nowhere to go but up-up-up from here, I suppose!

Love, 

Grace

and so that was Christmas.

I thought I was doing a decent job yesterday of not completely wallowing in a vat of self pity with Simon at work on Christmas, the kids pressing on with their usual stream of needs and not being around any of my family or Simon's family for Christmas. Julia and Sebastian were in great spirits, we did get to see Simon for Mass and breakfast and the drive to and from the hospital was completely bearable ... Christmas miracles abounding!

Then I put Julia down for her afternoon nap at the usual time of 2:00. She generally goes down without complaint but about ten minutes into the nap she started crying and so I let her cry ... and cry .... and cry ... for a long time. I'm a mean mom and I figured she was just being stubborn so I turned off the baby monitor upstairs and fed Sebastian. She finally settled down but started right back up again once she heard me walking around downstairs so I caved and went in to get her (it was Christmas ... after all!).

When people say, "I/he/she was throwing up e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e" it kind of sounds like a bit of a stretch or an exaggeration but I can say without fear of truth stretching that Julia was throwing up e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e (don't worry ... I'm stilling wearing a scarlet G for guilt on my chest today). It was all over her crib, crusted in her hair and she was still throwing up when I went to get her.  I won't go into gorier details than I already have but the vomfest continued as I tried to bathe and change her. She eventually stopped and seemed content to drink some juice and toddle around while I fed Sebastian upstairs.

Then the real fun began. I gathered up the laptop, Sebastian and Julia and was walking downstairs when Julia restarted throwing up all over me and a fussy Sebastian. Ahhh...what to do what to do? Rest Sebastian on a stair and make a bowl out of my hands? too dangerous. Redirect her face to not soil Sebastian's church clothes? too mean.  Use my third hand to call Simon and demand he race home? too impossible. 

I'm convinced it was divine intervention but at that very moment a fellow resident family unexpectedly knocked on the door with dinner.  Miracle!!!! They were able to hold Sebastian while I helped Julia continue to empty her little system and help me clean the bedding, rugs and floors ... and keep us company until Simon got home. The day was salvaged as Simon didn't have to eat cafeteria food for the 57th day in a row and Julia was thrilled that her house was occupied by people other than her boring brother and annoying mother.

So that was Christmas. Any and all pity parties I had planned on throwing were redirected to be in poor Julia's honor and Sebastian is only suffering from a mild case of PTSD. 

We had a little encore this morning but she seems to be doing a lot better now. And Sebastian wanted in on the gross action so he peed a direct (impressive) stream right into his open and smiling mouth mid-diaper change while I was tending to a fallen down and crying Julia this morn. Disgusting. I made him gargle ... don't worry. 

Simon will finally have a day off tomorrow and I might just keel over from excitement. Not a joke.

Merry Boxing Day.

and so this is Christmas.

Just me, merry and merrier here today ... capturing smiles on camera ... being festive ... watching this addicting show ... et cetera.

We met Simon for Mass at the hospital this morning where Julia got into her first fight with a five year old over his set of tangible Angry Birds, I almost lost a robot sprint happy Julia in the parking lot while I was loading Sebastian into the carrier and I ate my weight in sugar and grease from the cafeteria. Eventful hour.

I'll leave you with some readworthy Christmas posts since I have nothing postworthy today

When Santa Clause comes to Mass

So happy Calah and her Husband are reunited! 

Hilarious cookie recipe (from my long lost fellow summer camp goer!)

Merriest Christmas to all ... thank you for reading my vapid and ranty blog. 

You're the best of all the other blog readers ... guarant.

I left

the house ... with both children ... finally
(and no, I didn't dress Julia up for the occasion ... she hoards and hides all of her socks in an undisclosed location so she had to wear tights ... hence the dress and Dorothyjanes)

Granted, I merely made a 14 minute beeline for the hospital to see Simon in his natural habitat. Julia was in stranger heaven ... saying "hi!" to all she encountered and giddy over the attention she is clearly missing at home. It was determined by many that Sebastian is big for his age and that Julia looks just like Simon. 

Someone asked if I had been doing lots of Christmas shopping with the kids.

In a word? 

no

In seven words? 

are you out of your mind? no

And now I'm off to solve the ugly mystery that is ... how will we get to Mass with Simon's hellish insane awful work hours, Julia's early bedtime, Sebastian's feeding schedule and my rosy outlook on the situation?

I'll let you know ... I always do

Merry Christmas Eve

yadda

oh my goodness

Call me 80 but I say, "oh my goodness" about a zillion times a day, maybe more. Usually it is accompanied by some annoyed thought .. allow me to demonstrate and share ...

Oh my goodness ... Julia scaled the shelves, found and emptied an entire container of wipes ... one at a time ... again. 

Oh my goodness ... why do they both wake up and crycrycry at the exact same time every morning? e-v-e-r-y m-o-r-n-i-n-g? (to which Simon asks, "so...how do you triage that?")

Oh my goodness ... how is it only 9:48? It was 9:46 three bleeping hours ago.

Oh my goodness ... why does Julia drop an atomic diaper bomb at the exact same frantic moment Sebastian neeeeeds to eat?

Oh my goodness ... why do we keep getting Christmas cards for the people that moved out of this house in MAY?? ... trash.

Oh my goodness ... the Backyardigans song is unbelievably annoying ... why does Julia love it SO much?

Oh my goodness ... thank goodness Netflix has a zillion episodes of the Backyardigans ... Julia loves it SO much.

Oh my goodness ... how is watching me shower so much more interesting than the Backyardigans and the large measuring cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips that I gave her?

Oh my goodness ... how long have my knee high fuggs been on the wrong feet?

Oh my goodness ... is that poop or chocolate on Julia's stomach? please be chocolate.

Oh my goodness ... how does Julia eat three cold turkey dogs in one sitting? vomburger.

Oh my goodness ... how does Sebastian plow through vats of formula so fast? (we're having some serious mothermilk supply issues ... not to be remedied by herbs, vitamins, teas or the Google ... seriously frustrating ... maybe I'll elaborate in a cheery Christmas day post ... bate that breath!)

(morning) Oh my goodness ... I should really start trying to make dinner at night. 

(evening) Oh my goodness ... I hope Simon brings home some food from the hospital cafeteria.

Oh my goodness ... I hate working out. 

Oh my goodness ... why will the postpartum poundage not budge one tenth of an ounce?!

Oh my goodness ... Grace ... stop.

*the above photo has a few options for titles:

1. feigned serenity

2. mom skunk hair

3. Punkin Chunkin -- do you watch and love Modern Family? You better. My favorite character is Cam and my favorite scene eva is this one.

smiley diva

When Julia goes down for her morning nap Sebastian and I lug ourselves down to the basement for a hot date with Jillian Michaels or some other awful workout DVD. Sometimes he lets me do the entirety of my workout without complaint, sometimes he likes to punctuate my workout with feedings and pacifier grumblings and sometimes he doesn't let me work out at all. Yesterday fell into the no workout categ. The kid just wanted to lounge and smile and lounge (in his outfit that I eventually realized I put on backwards) in my boring lap ... not the super fun swing. Not complaining ... merely reporting the totally not mundane to my captivated audience. You're welcome ... as always.

Sebastian is smile city these days but when he gets hungry ... watch out.

Simon Says

after I weighed myself Simon cautiously asked,

"...is it going to be a good mood or a bad mood...?"

after I asked him if he had heard of the Elf on a Shelf phenomenon Simon replied, 

"We had a whole conversation about this! Were you hammered?"

while changing one of Sebastian's more prolific diapers Simon over shared,
"It's an ocean! And it smells like a seafood factory."

right before we left for a Christmas party Simon said,
"You look pretty! I think it's the makeup ... I'm not used to it"

socks

Simon and I had the pleasure of attending a Christmas party hosted by one of the doctors Simon works with this past weekend. We hired a sitter (exclamation point) to watch both kids (exclamation point exclamation point) who graciously doubled as prom photographer for us weird parentals. 

I was busy guzzling 1.3 glasses of Chardonnay (the effects were embarrassingly painful the next early morning a la Mass with the two angels) and didn't hear the compliment but Simon informed me that one of the older doctors told him that he had a pair of socks with the exact pattern of my shirt.

Touche.

shoes

"shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes! shoes!"

repeat.

and repeat again.

got it.

those are socks but I'll placate your obvious machine gun enthusiasms by agreeing that those are indeed, "shoes!"

a moment in the wildest day.

shedding

 Poor Sebastian.
First he had the volcanic monster blem and now he is suffering from a hideous case of peeling forehead skin. Hopefully my home remedy of Eucerin is effective as we have plans to be social tonight and I'm scared of what the public might think of his scales. 
If it doesn't work I might have to construct an infant headdress or maybe a wide brimmed bonnet for my little reptile.

Aren't you glad my busy schedule allows a sliver of time to document and publish the skin ailment chronicles: children's edish? 

Me too.

Sebastian: 7 weeks

what? doesn't every annoying mom give an unsolicited baby update at 7 weeks? 

That's what I thought. Of course!

Well as you can see Sebastian is having a hard time putting on weight, hates to eat and is growing more hair on the daily. He is pictured here (twice) rocking his favorite pair of size six months jeggings ... passed down from Julia.  My strict "eat, wake, sleep" regimen has paid off a total of two times in which he slept six consecutive hours at night. Otherwise, we enjoy a little cock-a-doodle-needy every two to four hours at night ... yay.

Julia acknowledges his presence about once every two days for a brief five second stint but generally they keep to themselves. We're expecting first teeth, first words and first steps any day now ... keeping the expectations low and loose.

All to report ... unless I spring a 7 weeks 3 days update on your lucky bottom ... time vill tell

haircut and links

{Julia stilllll wearing my swimsuit bottoms as a necklace ... fit pitched if I dare try and put them away ... so I indulge the weird little tyrant}

I had a Groupon to get my hair cut so I went to get it cut this morning. If I had a dime for every time the stylist suggested I cut it all off, asked how long it had been (again) since my last trim, asked why I liked wearing my hair long if I never styled it and likened my hair to dreadlocks (this is when I really almost walked out I was so mortified) ... well, I wouldn't be rich but I would maybe have enough lettuce for some nice nail polish or lip stain ... I think. I'm pretty sure I'll be put on the wall of shame for most neglected coif eva. 

Whatev.

Onto bigger and better

watch this ... super short, super cute and super worth it

I didn't believe what I was reading ... a mother's worst nightmare ... prayers for this family

Meg started a new blog! 

so funny!

hasta tarda.

Happy Birthday Dad!

{back in our younger and fitter era}

Sebastian can't wait to meet you, and Julia can't wait to see you tomorrow!

Love,

your eldest and wisest daught

hairless temples

I think this is a common problem for female toddlers. Their hair seems to be incapable of growing in on the sides, giving them bona fide mullets. Julia happens to be one of the lucky ducklings. Her mullet is really long ... as illustrated above ... and it can be pulled back into an ample tail. But everyone knows the only thing worse than a mullet is a mullet pulled into a tail ... so we gathered the front into an alicorn ... problem solvers be we.

 

Praise be that we never leave the house ... and that Simon will be home in two hours and thirty minutes. 

tee

gee

eye

effffffff

ps Kudos to Calah and Dwija!
Read all about it here.

Vitamin E Oil

Digging deep in my shallow pockets of shallow for today's post material ... and the entire point of the post has been pretty much completely foiled and made moot by the annoying realization that my before and after (totally untouched - SAHM's honor) photos show virtually no improved difference. 

Yet ... I'm still giving my publisher the clicky go ahead. 

vatev.

I've written about my neck scar before so I won't dive into that vat of interesting again but I will briefly tell you what a little wonder worker this little bottle

 has been.

For the first 1.2 years of it's life my scar was a gross, stubborn, and angry reddish purple ... 

  never to show any signs of fading until I attacked it with the oil after every shower (so, 1-2 times weekly)

Now? After a few months it's a festive hue of reddish pink which I (shockingly) prefer to angry reddish purple

 I understand if you're underwhelmed and unimpressed by the photos. I am too. I told you ... foiled and moot. 

Just trust and believe that the oil works and is cheap (five dollars for two bottles that will probably last a lifetime) and if you happen to have any nasties on your neck ... this is your worker bee. Promise.

And now to file this post under examples of: sometimes nothing is better than something.

vok

Now that Sebastian is a geriatric six and a half weeks old ... I should probably have my ship together and sailing ... but I don't. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I haven't braved the car and public with them alone yet and don't plan on doing so anytime soon. Why set myself up for a tragic failure? Only easy street for me. The timing was finally right to venture out of our fevered cabin ... both kids were fed, awake and in tolerable moods ... so I strapped on my former-running-now-walking shoes and we all headed out in our pajamas (plus one Santa hat {c/o Mandy} for Sebastian). The highlight for a spastic Julia was spotting an avid Cardinals fan (his Cardinals shirt, Cardinals hat, Cardinals cell phone case and Cardinals leather jacket gave him away) walking his rat-sized chihuahua on what appeared to be a piece of thread. The highlight for a winded, calves-on-fire me was when Sebastian fell asleep.  

And that is allllll the excitement to report. Hmmm...this seemed a lot more monumental at the time. Maybe you'll get lucky and tomorrow I'll write about the time I mustered the strength to defrost a frozen meal for dinner. 
Maybe.

notsofast

 I had been pleased that yesterday was the first day spent with the two nonverbals that I didn't send Simon multiple smoke signal texts demanding that he leave any crowning baby heads behind and speed race home to my sanity zapped rescue.  I mean ... the diapers were still gross and abundant and the babes were still needsucks but we seemed to finally almost hit some sort of stride that made me think I might not lose all my marbles after all (!!). I don't know what the magical equation was exactly. I did get sort of dressed. I got crazy and donned my festive pants but kept things tame and predictable keeping my housecoat and housesocks securely on my person.  Julia branched out from her usual diet of solely processed meat (haw daws and chickie nugs -- when we started calling them that and that I know not but my mortified former self is rolling in my future self's grave). Also, some very kind souls loaned us a genius baby swing that sways side to side instead of the boooooring front to back and keeps Sebastian weirdly content for scarily amazing amounts of time.  And I ordered one (my first) Christmas gift online ... look out.

blahblahblah
positive
blah

Then today happened.

 Unbelievable blowouts (I am tempted to go into gross detail about these but I know that would guarantee that you would never return ... so you're spared for now) requiring back to back baths, a sudden and very scary diaper extinction, tantrums galore and (my fave) Simon getting unexpectedly called and required to go to a loooooooooooooooong work dinner directly after work leaving me sans my very cherished time with a fellow talker that I have grown so dependent on night after night (don't worry - my anonymous hate letter to the dinner that I wrote before I washed my filthy hands from the blowouts - oops - is locked and loaded in the fax machine headed straight to all responsible parties).

so
one decent
+
one unpleasant
=
back to where we started:
very low daily expectations and back to taking things one day/hour/minute/diaper at a time
which is fine
didn't mean for this to rhyme
dime
pine
sign
can't stop
won't stop
line

end whine, now wine.

forgive me (and mine).



oh, will you see this?
I will. Totally.

discipline

 Julia in "time out"

This weekend Simon relegated a chair for Julia to start having thirty second time outs as a reward for hitting, pinching, biting Sebastian and pulling his thinning hair. I tried putting her in the punishment chamber (said chair is facing the scary brown walled corner) yesterday after she whacked Sebastian's sleeping head with a doll's rock hard awake head. 

Como se dice backfire to the zillionth degree?

She loved her perch and I couldn't get her to leave for several minutes (years in toddler time).

Perhaps we'll have to move straight to big girl punishments. 

No more cellie, no more makeup and, no more 'candy' (fiber gummies).

No fun. 

"you have a beautiful daughter"

"...just gorgeous!"

effusively whispered the kind lady to my left at Mass yesterday. I know she wasn't talking about Julia because she had been escorted out by Simon after literal drip drip drips of urine starting falling onto Simon's shoes. I don't know what about Sebastian's brown and blue attire and masculine features screamed beautiful, gorgeous or daughter but ... something did ... loud and proud.

c'est la vie ... gender blind folk y todo.