The Perfect Book Idea...

Jenny McCarthy had a great idea when she wrote "Belly Laughs". It was wonderful to read a book on pregnancy that I could relate to when I was pregnant with Bug.

When I was pregnant with Bubs and found out that my brother and his wife were expecting their first, I was ready with the advice to my brother. "Never tell her she's crying over nothing," was one of the first tidbits I had for him. I can't remember them all now, but there were quite a few things that should never be said to a pregnant woman, especially the one carrying your child!

Now, I have the sequel to that book, "101 Things to NEVER Say to the Mother of Your Children".  The idea for this comes from both Hubs' flubs as well as things I've heard other moms share in disbelief.  Here are a couple to get it started:

• "You get time to be yourself every night.  You put the kids to bed and then you're up for a couple of hours by yourself."  Men, if you're reading this, spending time alone probably isn't what your wife wants. She's more than likely hoping for some free time without children in tow. And just because our friends have kids that our kids play with doesn't mean we always want it to be a family affair!
• "Why didn't you get _____ done, you were home all day?" Please, please, please, do NOT say this to a stay at home mom! As a full-time work outside of the home mom, I can tell you, staying at home is FAR more stressful! Any woman who is strong enough to stay home with the kids and keep the house in any sort of order is strong enough to knock you down!

So, what would you add to this list?

Mother Nature is a Vile Woman!

Last week, it was over 80 degrees.  Earlier this week, it was almost 70.  Today, the high will be 42.  Add on top of that two rainy days followed by a night of snow, and work today is BRUTAL! 

For those who don't know, I operate a lunch time food cart. We're night quite as dedicated as the Postal Service, we don't operate in lightning, but we do operate in all other conditions.  Today, I have on a long sleeve shirt, my UW sweatshirt (go Badgers hockey!), and Crocs.  Why Crocs?  Because with everything that happened last night, I was too tired to dig out my boots this morning.  Luckily, I parked my car right in front of the cart (which I'm watching like a hawk to avoid the evil parking enforcement cop who I think watches for meters to turn red so she can race to them.  (I stand corrected, it's apparently an equally eager male parking cop) Because I have my car and it's directly in front of me, I was able to steal Bubs' blanket and wrap my feet in it.

Like a kid in school, I see the clock and I'm counting the minutes until my release from this frigid hell.  Somewhere, there is a cup of coffee with my name on it.  And tonight, I'm thinking I will splurge on a six pack (which will probably wind up being used primarily for brats) and curling up with a good movie.  On second thought, I have to get my backside back on track and keep my date with Jillian.  Damn her!

Yes, I'm Angry!

Last night, I called Hubs to let him know they were calling for snow.  He was going to a friend's house after work and was going to have a 40 mile commute home. Imagine my surprise when I woke up at 4am and he wasn't home!

So, after getting Bubs settled down (come on, you think I was up at 4am without a wake up call???) I called Hubs. He was about 4 miles from home and let me know to be careful on the side roads coming home.  He then tells me I need to check his head when he gets home because he's pretty sure that he was knocked out "for a bit" when he went off the road!!

My first thought was how much more serious this could have been.  He could have called me from the hospital.  I could have had a police officer contact me. He could have still been on the side of the road when I called him.  But he wasn't.  And that's when anger started settling in.

I'm angry that he didn't come home earlier, before the roads got slick.  It's not like it was a shocker that it was coming.  I'm angry that he was out so late because he watches Bubs during the day and because of this, I'm probably going to wind up taking Bubs in to work with me. Not like I plan on Hubs watching him on 2 hours of sleep. I'm angry that he feels somewhat invincible driving on slick roads because he learned to drive in Minnesota. I'm angry that he doesn't feel I have any right to be angry about any of these things, starting with this could have been so much worse! 

So, here I sit at 4:30 in the morning, trying to work through my feelings.  I'm not a morning person, I'd much rather be curled in my bed with one or both of my men sleeping next to me. And worse, I feel like a total bitch because I haven't gotten past it. I feel like a horrible wife because I didn't react "like I should have". Oy, it's going to be a long day!

And Now It's Time For...

Being a blogger, I love reading blogs almost as much as writing mine. That being said, I hate going to a blog and seeing that the only thing going on is blog hops and memes.  Don't get me wrong, I love blog hopping as much as the next blogger gal, but I don't want to get to know you through special features alone!

Yes, it's a good way to get your visits up, but is it a good way to develop a relationship with others?  It is, in moderation. If you have witty post-its on Tuesday or wonderful pictures on Wednesday, I guarantee I am going to go searching for more.  If all I find is a forced series of memes, I will close the window.

So please, don't force it to be time for anything. Allow it to be time for social functions if you so choose.  Otherwise, do what you started the blog for.  If you started it as a way to show pictures, let me see what you've got.  If you started it to rant about your family, I think we can all relate.  Take a minute to get back to basics and maybe turn off your stat counter for a while!

/rant