awesome thrift store finds

chris did his usually errands around town this morning, and while there he found a few items that he wanted me to check out. there were two jogging strollers both listed for $20 both had their flaws.... and not worth the effort to purchase and resell. so if any readers are looking for some heavily used singer joggers there are two at the st vincent depaul in coraopolis today....

while there, i did find a few other items that were totally worth the drive down there.

here's one:
we have one of these already but we have two kiddos... so i was in search of another. $2.99! score! and doesn't andy look sooooo damn cute in there!? he's such a good little model! i had to hose it off and take a few clorox wipes to it and some goo gone but it's good as new now :)

here's purchase number 2:
again a few clorox wipes later and it's in perfect condition.... and it even makes firetruck sounds!

and for the crafty readers:
there's bias tape, seam bindings, rick rack and some other seaming covers. all in some fun retro colors! 3 for $.49! now i need to dust off my machine again soon!

i spent less than $8 there and got a whole lot of fun!

firsts: pineapple and cereal

andy had his first taste of food today. he's been clamoring for food ever since he's been sitting with us for meals which has been a few months now. i of course got the go ahead to start them when i was ready at his 4 month check up. i wasn't ready and frankly didn't think i would be for another month or so but apparently i wasn't the only one to make this decision. andy had to weigh in on it too.

yesterday i decided to make this yummy treat but we didn't actually have the treat until tonight. man was it goooood. andy was ready to nurse and go to bed but we were having our snack so i decided to give him a little taste. i mean really it's just pineapple. no added sugar or anything so what can it hurt? he licked it up like he's never had food ever in his life, oh wait... he hasn't! i didn't give him much just little bits on the tip of my spoon. but once we finished he got really angry and demanded more food. so i made him some baby oatmeal, it's all i had on hand... i made him about an inch or so in one of those small take n toss bowls... he ate all of it! then i took him upstairs, changed him into his bedtime clothes and he nursed for a full session. he wasn't asleep though when he was done which is about normal for the past 4-5 days. i put him down, gave him his binky and walked out the door. he fussed (hardly) for a few minutes and then..... quiet.

he's also been sleeping through the night like a champ lately. it's morphed a bit in the past few days but it's super in my opinion. he goes down between 8 and 8:30 then wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30, nurses and goes back down for about 3 more hours. it's lovely.

his naps are still hit or miss and not very consistent. but i usually get at least an hour sometimes two in the afternoon when both boys are napping. it's just not at the same time daily and sometimes doesn't happen at all.

now i'm on poop watch. i remember with max when we started cereal there were a few long no-poo spells in the beginning. then when the poo came... holy crap... literally. fun times area ahead :)

people are for the birds

i wasn't going to blog about this but annie sorta left some readers hanging on some details as to what happened on our last outing with the kids so i'll share what happened. personally, it had me so worked up and so pissed off about our society that i really just wanted to forget all about it. but the more i thought about it, i think i really did need to actually talk about it here because well, damnit not everything is peaches and cream and not all parenting situations are perfect either and well, frankly not all parents are perfect either and especially myself but after thinking about it some more i realized that one doesn't have to be perfect, who the heck should really be all that perfect except for the one and only perfect one Himself, ya know? but instead of being perfect we should all strive to be just good, decent, loving people who pay attention to what we're doing in the world and not act like animals in public and not act like our poo isn't smelly and not cause caustic situations for others who are just trying to get their kids out of the house as to not have a tantruming toddler on their hands at 10 am in the morning due to boredom (ok, that got a little deep for my normally very light blog) so onto the story....

as annie mentioned we took the kiddos to the national aviary on monday. it was a fun outing except for the other PEOPLE. have i ever mentioned my dislike for most other humans? well, here's how it went down...

annie and i had our double strollers in a narrow hallway looking at some birds with our little guys. when around the corner we heard quite a ruckus. not sure if it was sparked by a bird attack or what... but shortly there after a heard of wild buffalo, err about 5 or 6 7 year olds acting very unruly came racing past us (all still screaming at full volume) while one child tripped on my stroller, knocked max's cup out of his hands and pretty much landed right in the middle of my double stroller and on top of andy. she quickly got up and kept. on . going. i about lost it. i yelled at her (there was no adult insight right away) told her to NEVER run in a public space and basically said it was very rude and totally uncalled for to be acting like that! then when an adult appeared i yelled at her to control her kids and how rude she was too! the adult was a counselor of sorts, the kids were with a YMCA summer camp group that was also touring the aviary. she pretty much looked at me like i had four heads and kept on going. max was crying because he was stunned that he had been run into and because his sippy cup was knocked out of his hands.... andy didn't really know what just happened and my blood pressure was probably 170 over 100. i got everyone back together and calmed down and we left the hall. annie was all like "whoa...." then i told her that she didn't need to be worrying about getting into a fight at dave matthews a few weeks ago but instead she should have been concerned with ME getting into a fight at the aviary...

i saw this counselor a few more times throughout our visit and she did give me the stink eye a few times... i just couldn't believe that she didn't have those kids under some sort of control. i realize that taking kids out in public is always an adventure but why didn't these kids know that they shouldn't run in public places like this? why haven't their parents taught them this? i knew not to run in places like that when i was that age. i knew to apologize if i did something wrong.... why has this country turned into a large breading ground for ill behaved people, children and adults alike? is it due to drugs? is it due to single parent homes? is it because our society has lost all ability to act like reasonable humans? is it because our society has turned into a cushy place where we all just turn our heads and ignore issues that should be addressed? is it because we, as a society, believe that in t-ball everyone should get a trophy and that there aren't any losers? and that everyone gets a pat on the back and told they did a great job even when they did a terrible job... thus just making their mediocre work seem stellar in their minds?

i'm glad that i yelled at that little girl and the adult minder. i'm glad that the whole thing didn't render me speechless like it normally would have. i think becoming a parent has loosened my usually tight lipped nature to just let things go. i think the mother instinct kicked in and i needed to protect my kids and that included reprimanding the others involved. maybe that little girl took a minute to realize what she did. maybe my yelling at her made her stop and think for a split second that maybe she should not run and act like an animal in public places. i hope to think it might have. but i fear that it just went right on past her and she'll just end up doing something just as hideous in the future because she just hasn't been taught the right way to be a good citizen by her parents.

ok, rant over. this blog will be back to it's usual lightheartedness by the next post.

tagged

annie tagged me last week and i'm just now getting to it... here's the criteria:

"Name five things that you can't live without. It can't be a person, it has to be something material that actually makes your life easier. It can't be something in general, it must be exact. Also, it can't be the obvious like a cell phone or computer."

1. napping babies. if everyone takes a nap in a day's time, i'm happy! double bonus points if they both happen at the same time. i can't live without them though because grumpy babies makes for grumpy mama and no one likes those.

2. my loveyduds.com baby carrier. i love this thing and frankly couldn't take both boys out of the house alone without it.

3. my new mp3 player as mentioned below.

4. sorry to glomb on but our DVR. srsly, how did we ever manage before this thing!?

5. my key fob for my car... i know it might sound lame but i hate fumbling around for keys and then sticking it in the key hole to unlock the car doors. this is my first car that has the key fob thingie and i'm very glad i have it especially now that i have kids. now my back only gets mildly damp while i put them in the car instead of soaked (if it's raining of course) now that i don't have to unlock the front door, open the door, unlock the rest of the doors, go around the other side, blah blah blah, you get the picture...

i tag, uh... i dunno... jen and michelle. hopefully you haven't been tagged yet?

this century

i have joined the masses. i have a new mode of music and it's called a trio clip and looks like this.



mine is kelly green. chris loaded it with all of our anti-corporate sounding music that we dig and i put a few dmb, beatles, old school beach boys and abba on it too. i love music and love listening to it loud. i like to hear everything IN the song, not just the main parts that are usually the only thing you can hear when in the car. yesterday i got to use it while i relaxed on the deck. both kids were napping, and my chores were done so i got out my knitting, relaxed in a deck chair and listen to some tunes on my mp3 player :). it rocked!

now i'm off to do the same thing!