Meet n' Greet

Our good friends Wes and Ashley finally had their baby so Benji finally has a friend. Emma Grace was born January 9^th. My initial thoughts were that she looked like Wes but Matt argued that the only person she looked like was Benji because all newborns resemble each other. The old me may have agreed but the new mommy me begs to differ. Whatevs. She has dark eyes, a full head of thick hair, long fingernails that came out like a perfect manicure, and a tan! Yay for Emma being here!

We had dinner with the new fam this week and it was Banjo and Emma’s first official date. Holy Cow, when did I get a 4 yr old? That’s what I felt like after seeing the 2 side by side. Benji looked enormous and Emma looked teeny tiny. She’s a solid 8 lbs. but she looks a lot leaner than Benji ever was. We propped them up for a photoshoot and even though I took 49 pictures, the very first one cracks me up.

Benji looks a combo of terrified/repulsed/confused/shocked/scared/curious. Emma (who does have a neck and does not have a hunchback) is thinking “let me get my 8 hours of sleep” (like Wes). That or that she has to poop (which they both did about 10 minutes later – Emma and Benji, not Emma and Wes). Here is a montage of shots from the over-zealous camera bearing mommy.

‘WTF is that’   *   Full body scan   *   ‘She looks alright’

Elbow jab   *   'Eeek' (one of my faves)   *   ‘I don’t think shes moving’

‘Is she alive? Can someone check?’   *   Yawn- this is boring   *   G-rated 'F your pictures, Mom'

First date jitters   *   If we put our heads together…. *   Okay Emma’s waking up

Pinky out, so proper   *   Benji needs a place to rest his massive head   *   Emma says, 'not on me'

Just making sure we have the wedding video covered…. In case we need pictures for one, one day.

This baby picture explosion made me think about people saying babies are cute. Telling me Benji is cute is a much appreciated compliment. Thanks! I agree! But when people phrase it as “You make cute babies!” I feel a twinge of discomfort. People who say that are usually older and my mind immediately hones in on the “make” portion of the statement. I think of the act that made the baby. This is uncomfortable when it’s an uncle, or neighbor, or weird co-worker, or complete stranger telling you that. Are they thinking of me and Matt making the baby too? Even worse is “You did good.” It sounds so blunt. When I type the words, in my head they are in a gruff, pat on the back with affirmation, man to man thumbs up kind of voice. Awkward, American Pie kind of stuff.  I feel like an old man is snickering, giving Matt a high-five saying, ‘done did good, boy’ in reference to successfully impregnating me with some super sperm to ensure the legacy of his seed.  Creepy. Please stick to the plain old “cutes.”

Back to the babies. Emma again, reaffirms the fact that my baby is not a baby anymore, and I need to make plans for another one. I sound like a baby hoarder. I don’t always need a baby, or need 10 of them, Benji just needs another baby to play with – 24/7 (see Matt, its all for Benji!).  

Speaking of all for Benji, he’s had a hankering for sweets lately (breastfeeding allows me to justify indulgences, blame it on the baby!) and dinner at the Peterson’s gave me an excuse to try out a recipe (now there is something I do hoard). I whipped up a little Coconut Cake with Triple Berry filling and Coconut Buttercream. I had been wanting to try out the ombré layered cake craze all over the baking blogs (and Pinterest) and it turned out pretty snazzy if I do say so myself.

would look much cooler without the fruit filling

 

Feel free to call me to make you a baby gender reveal cake. This would be the cutest for one of those!

I can’t believe all the changes 3 short months have brought and in 3 short more (2 ½), we will have Baby Krebs here too (making Emma look like a 4 yr old and Benji look like a 5^th grader). It’s always exciting to think of the next baby milestones and I’m so excited for Benji to scoot, say mama, reach for me… but seeing a newborn really reminded me to savor the days now because they will be gone in a flash. My days of snuggling a little ball of baby scented squish are numbered!

this is already outdated!

Here On My Tuffet

Remember last summer when my dogs, who had only killed one thing EVER (when matt was out of town) killed 2 birds in 24 hours (when matt was out of town)??? It still blows my mind that of all the days in the year, all 3 massacres happened when I was home alone. Its like the universe just knows (or maybe dead animals are just all in the family…)

To the body count, I can now add 3 spiders. I am not talking about measly little daddy long legs, I’m talking about giant spiders. With fangs. And spiky legs. I’m getting itchy just writing this. Gross. I’m starting to think that I’m cursed or something. It all started… I don’t remember when, but in the past few months. I woke up for work, walked into the bathroom, past the bathtub and BAM! I was hit with a horrid sight. 

 

Giant. Spider. In. Tub. I can kill bugs here and there without being too much of a girl (although once in high school I was freaking out about a moth in my room…my dad’s form of rescue was a simple, monotone “turn off your light, open your door and turn on the hall light.” Thanks for nothing, Dad) but my issue is reproduction. Bugs lay eggs. Eggs hatch. 1 bug just became 45, even if it’s just a moth. 

Another issue with bugs and their eggs is that I have heard 1 too many horror stories about people stepping on a spider or squishing a spider that was carrying said eggs on its back. POP. A million tiny spiders running around, possibly on you. I just s.o.l.-ed (shivered out loud, but silently. It was an action). Disgusting. Now, when I see a spider, I hesitate smashing its guts out for fear of the egg sack, that I don’t even know really exists. But not smashing it means it can scurry into some dark corner to lay more eggs and make more spiders. Aagghh! 

The first response to killing a bug is toilet paper, or some sort of napkin/paper towel variety. I killed a cricket once with TP (those little buggers are hard to find and when you finally do, they must die. It’s them and the chirping, or something valuable getting thrown at the wall). Killing it with TP required far too much force. It was thick and crunchy and its guts looked like chunky applesauce. I can’t handle the warmth or the moisture of the freshly dead bug that you can feel through the wad of paper. TP is too absorbent and fingers are not protected, computer paper doesn’t envelop the suspect enough to do damage, and my shoe would mean I have bug guts that I then track all over my house. The real problem is that when you spot a bug, the panicky feeling takes over and you are forced to grab anything within reach. (I refuse to resort to me shoe though. I would rather smash it with a soap dispenser or some other random object that I would then throw away, rather then use my shoe, which goes in my closet with my clothes, and walks on floors in my house that I eat off of, and walks through carpet that Banjo lays on).

Back to the spider in my tub. I’m not kidding, it was huge. Like a 2 inch leg span. My initial reaction to all spiders of any size or shape is that it is a brown recluse. I read about them being in Omaha a few summers ago and I am convinced one will find me, or Matt, or Gus (fine, or Walter). Spider in the tub was before Benji’s day so he was not on my mind but our skin shriveling off from a spider bite was. I saw the spider and had to act quickly. The worst thing that could happen in this type of situation would be to see the spider, go retrieve a killing device, and return to no more spider. Now that’s a situation. The possibilities of where it could have gone would be awful. Anyway, I had to act fast so as to not lose sight of the devil. I quickly evaluated the situation~ TP was not heavy duty enough for a job this size and shoes were out of the question, so I went with my preferred method, aerosol. I grabbed my hairspray (which has worked in the past – it glues the victim in its place) and smothered the crap out of the giant. This stunned him enough for me to go pillage for something stronger. Scrub N Bubbles. Boom. The spider appeared to shrivel and wasn’t moving. 

At that point I patted myself on the back, and turned on the tub to ‘wash the spider out.’ That’s when it got ugly. The water swooshed the spider up the side of the tub, where it stuck, and resurrected. Are you kidding me? This was way too big to smash, even dead, let alone pissed off, sticky and smelling fresh. I repeated my spray attack, and ran to the other bathroom to get something with Clorox. Bleach 1 Spider 0. I was going to leave the body for Matt to clean up but having witnessed the first resurrection, I couldn’t take any chances. I had to shovel the thing onto a magazine and throw the whole lot away. Now that the spider was gone, I was left to deal with the thoughts of the spider being near me while I had been sleeping. I convinced myself since it was in the tub, it had crawled up the drain and therefore, had just entered our house (no time to lay eggs or bite us). Its only one spider, its only one spider, its only one spider. Thank God I have the attention span of a kid at Tilt. I soon forgot the 8-legged terror and moved on with my life.  

Then, Itsy Bitsy’s BFF came seeking revenge. Groggy and dazed, I rolled out of bed a couple of weeks later, strolled into my closet and hit the lights.

A little hard to focus on anything.

Tell me this is a nightmare.

Are you kidding me?!? Another one? HUGE? In my closet?!?

Thank God I saw this one, I don’t even know how I did back in that corner. But it was big, and thick and black (TWSS) and again I just got the heebie jeebies typing this. The panic set in and I had to act. This sucker couldn’t stay with my clothes! I kept envisioning putting on a shoe and spiders running out, or reaching onto a shelf and getting fangs in my fingers. FML. No time to wake Matt up, I couldn’t risk losing sight of this f-er. I knew I needed to remove the pig from the vicinity because there were way too many places for him to escape (um, my undies are in a basket next to him). I psyched myself up and on 3, I yanked piggy off of the shelf and into the middle of the floor. The spider scurried to the piggy ear and I patted myself on the back for saving my wardrobe, and keeping the spider in sight.

My initial thought was to resort to my bleach bottle, soak the piggy/spider to death, and throw them both away. That’s when the SOB took off. Hairspray paralyzer, check. Now for the tricky part, this guy was on carpet and I didn’t want to make a big bleach mark on the floor. With time running out and little else to grab, I was forced to go with the TP. Uggh, I cringe thinking about it. Luckily I had the plastic that the TP rolls come in so I held the wad through the plastic and spidey was toast. Force of the nubbins 1 Spider 0. My joy of victory lasted about 3 seconds until I started thinking about where the heck that one came from. No drains in the closet so I settled on it falling from the vent in the ceiling~ thankfully not 12 inches to the right into my panty pile.

Since the closeted spider came out, I’ve lived in a bug free bubble. Arachnid anxiety was replaced with baby love and I didn’t think twice about bugs or critters (ha! Emily has a funny critter story with some ground squirrels) until last night. Sometimes when I’m getting ready, I lay out a blanket on the bathroom floor (our bathroom is carpeted so its okay to have a baby there and I know carpet in bathrooms is gross~ it came with the house and its at the top on the ‘renovate’ list). Anyway, one of the blankets had been ‘put away’ (tossed in a pile off to the side) for a few days and last night, a little something caught my eye. Son of a….

I have to admit, this spider was the smallest of the 3 I’ve seen (like ¼ of the size) BUT it was also the brownest. Remember my knowledge of the recluse? Again, I was forced into action for fear of losing sight of the stupid thing. Not wanting to poison my baby’s stuff with my aerosol attack (my all natural melaleuca products are on order), I went with the shake and squeeze. Shake the blanket, squeeze the spider with TP (the smaller the spider, the less chance of goo or anything else soaking through my 500 TP squares). The whole incident was over and done in a flash but unfortunately, I was left to my own wild imagination and fears. We’ve thrown a baby into the mix and all I could picture was Benji confined to the bars of his crib prison, covered in spiders. Sound asleep, like a perfect little angel, with spiders coming freely in and out of his nose, mouth and ear orifices. 

Stupid spiders. I have tried to convince myself that they are the kind that eat the other bugs, you know, the kind you want in your house? But its doubtful. In almost a year in our house, I have seen 3 spiders, all within like 100 sq. ft, all within close proximity to where we sleep, all when I’m alone and forced to deal on my own. Matt leaves in a few weeks and I don’t even want to know what critters I’ll be dealing with then. With my track record, it’ll be like the ‘Hangover’ and I’ll wake up to a tiger in my bathroom. Lord, help us all.

I think I deserve some gifts to myself to make life easier while he’s gone (to compensate for any other crap I’ll have to deal with). 1. A regular exterminator visit (a preventative measure) 2. A landscaper to clear our lawn of debris and stray wood piles where recluses dwell (save the puppies, plus I don't know how to mow) and 3. A cleaning lady (hey why not). The military should give me these things while Matt’s gone since essentially I’m asking for a highly productive version of my husband that they’re sending away. Hey, a girl can dream, right? Anything to get my mind off of all of the horrible creepy crawlies lurking in the shadows of my house, just waiting for Matt to leave.

Diaper Diddler

So, this little peanut is keeping fresh with cloth diapers.

Cloth diapers have come a long way since my generation was clothed in rectangle rags and shower caps with leg holes. Benji has a much more stylish bum with his “FuzziBunz” brand pocket-style diaper. It diapers like a normal disposable diaper and has an ‘insert’ that gets tucked into a pocket to absorb crap. Literally.

The ‘inserts’ look like this.

I’m Facebook friends with FuzziBunz and the company recently posted a link to a list of the ‘Best Alternative Uses for Inserts.’ Although I plan on these diapers being in service the next few years between Benji and his future sidekicks, I was curious what FuzziBunz suggested. The list started with some pretty standard cleaning suggestions. The inserts are basically a shammy/dust rag anyway, so that I could understand. But the more I read, the more blown away I was. People who sent in suggestions were absolutely ridiculous. So ridiculous, that I am partly ashamed to share brand loyalty to FuzziBunz with them because I’d like to think I have nothing in common with people this ridiculous. Here are some suggestions for things to do with old diaper inserts (I will have about 76 available in a few years – taking reservations now for anyone inspired).

When breastfeeding, fold an insert in half and stuff them in your bra to absorb leaky milk.

These pads are about 5 in wide and 8-12 inchs long. That is a GIANT bra stuffer, not to mention the weird shape/texture it’d make. Horrible suggestion. (maybe CD’s would need this, Court :))

Stash a few inserts in your home first aid kit to attend to wounds.

I am not the kind of mom who has a ‘home first aid kit.’ If I have a wound to attend to that is large enough to require 60 square inchs of absorbtion, I will either pass out or leave the mending to a medical professional.

Fold them in half, sew them closed but leave an opening for your hands and use old inserts as pot holders.

“There’s some casserole on your potholder.” “Oh that’s not casserole, that’s an old shit stain. Bon appétit!”

Give extra inserts to your kids and let their imaginations run wild.

Throw in some sanitary napkins for some fun with adhesive. A kid old enough to be amused is a kid smart enough to know that the only fun thing about diapers is poop and pee jokes.

what can i do with my diaper?

Put a spare insert on the changing table in case of mid-changing accidents.

Put the diaper on the changing table (aka place where you change diapers complete with shelves for storing diapering supplies). Rocket Science!

Soak an old insert in clean, cold water and use as a teething rag.

Are you serious? Did you forget that these are saturated in urine and poopy juice 4,962 times first? Mom, if you shoved diapers in my mouth to soothe me as a baby, I’m mad at you. The cost of 1 cloth diaper could provide 20 legitimate teething rings. Splurge on the $0.99. Your baby is worth it.

Diapers in my mouth?!? What?!!

Stuff inserts in your pants during labor after your water breaks.

This sounds like you are hoarding or something. The spare inserts are not the last absorbent material left on the planet. There are so many reasons that this is not a good idea (one of them being my vision in my head of spandex leggings stuffed with a bunch of inserts). Do not stuff your pants. If your baby isn’t even here yet, don’t taint his/her stuff with your own bodily fluids. That’s just gross.

Use old inserts to wipe down wet carts at the store.

A) That would require carrying an insert with you. Am I supposed to keep one in my purse?  B) Where do you shop where the carts are wet? C) There are 60 dry carts waiting just inside the door to choose from.

Keep spare inserts in your car to use to dry your windows after a car wash.

Who goes through a car wash enough to make storing poopy pads worth it? So dumb. Also, who gets out to dry off the window? I’d wiper that business and get back to my own.

Keep an extra insert near your car potty so you don’t have to worry about “spilling.”

Wtf?!? What in the world is a car potty? If this is some contraption to keep a toddler from having an accident, count me out. If potty happens in my vehicle, it will be a rare occasion that we will deal with as it comes (ask Patrick about Walnut). If my kid doesn’t have the self-control to not pee in a car, he’s going to be wearing the diaper, not sitting next to it to wipe up any spillage. I don’t condone bedpans in moving vehicles. Just think of the splashing.

These are just some of the suggestions brought to you by FuzziBunz users. Seriously, don’t let them skew your perception of the diapers (although, the fact that the company published this ridiculousness may take away a few gold stars in my book - shout out whitewater lane). These people are the same people who post ridiculous crap on baby information websites and have more virtual friends than real ones. Who’s going to be friends with the lady with bulging inserts stuffed in her pants and bra, with car potty splatter all over, drying of shopping carts with a baby on her hip sucking on a stained diaper? Not me. I’ll keep the inserts inserted… in their diaper shells.

**Sidenote/Random Thought: Matt and I used to wonder if people with ugly less cute babies knew their babies were less cute. The answer is no. I honestly think my baby is the #1 cutest baby in the world. I agree that there are times he looks scary or gets a weird eye or has a fat face or massive double chin, or looks pimple-y and red, but overall, I see nothing cuter. If anyone thinks my baby is not cute, or just so-so, or alright, they don’t have eyeballs in my opinion. Thank god for the blinders, every baby needs a #1 fan!

You could call me conceited if Benji looked like me but he is a mini-Matt so I’m allowed to brag.

A Holiday Style Guide

I'm sick of playing catch up on this dang blog so I was tempted to ignore the fact that we just had some holidays but since its Baby's First, I guess I'll mention it. We just had Christmas!

Benji still believes in Santa (who doesn't) and was so caught up in the Holiday spirit, he dressed the part 50 times.

We had Santa onesies,

...Christmas jammies,

...a jolly Santa suit (his head was too big for the hat),

...a Christmas sweater (darn button crotches),

...and a classy Christmas tuxedo (complete with wing tips).

Benji even dressed up to pay homage to his 2 favorite Christmas movies. This get-up was a salute to Cousin Eddie (redneck camo) and Ralphie (Red Ryder). The camo works so well, you have to look twice to find the Banjo.

If you were wondering how a tux fits into the 'Holiday Wear' category, chalk it up to the weirdo in the family. Since Benji outgrew his first tuxedo (gifted from his Rodfather), Patrick kindly stole my baby from Christmas Eve, stripped him of his cozy sweater pants and replaced his garb with a new and improved tuxedo. At the rate we're going, Benji should have any ring bearer engagements, prom, and his wedding covered by his Sugar Uncle.

#midnightmass #dresstoimpress #tuxedossupplyforlife #andwithyourspirit

Oh Christmas. The season flew by in a haze of frosting, christmas lights and cheer. I probably ate 5 pounds of frosted sugar cookies (i made chocolate sugar cookies which were fantastic~ try them here - I used buttercream of course), and mini pop tarts on a stick which were delicious - google it, and cheese/creamcheese/Velveeta/socreamyitsnothealthy dips and spreads, and homemade egg nog and rice pudding from the Puerto Ricans (thanks Maria), and tequila shots to celebrate my Aunt's Mexican roots, and 42 clementines, and hot wine wassail (trickery in a cup), and monkey bread, egg bakes, turkey, meatballs, rumaki (love those little bacon wrapped buggers), jalapeno poppers, caramels, homemade pita chips, and some celery (just to cleanse my pallet). Someone should have reminded me of the starving children in Africa. Gluttony at its finest. The good news is, Benji can tolerate all of the items listed above so he is on his way to participating in some nice and healthy Holiday binges.

Benji's favorite part of Christmas (besides the wardrobe and calories) was the Christmas lights. If you've ever seen the movie Up, it was like Dug and squirrels. I'm trying to think about how I can incorporate a live Christmas tree into casual suburban decor 365 days a year. His eyes get wide, and he glazes over.

It's the simple things. Next year it will be shreds of wrapping paper and the year after that boxes. Thank God for grandparents (and aunts and uncles) because these parents told Santa to skimp this year since the lights, the food and the cheer were enough for our little Banjo. Of course, he was on the nice list though, dressed in his Holiday finest.

Naughty or Nice? Is there any question?

*No eyes were shot out in the making of this blog post.

Baby Got Bath

For those of you who don’t already know, Matt is going to Afghanistan with the Air Guard. He leaves sometime in the beginning of February and returns what he claims will be late April but I can count (and read his orders) and 90 days is May. I am obviously not happy about this (especially when I think about how Benji is not even 90 days old) but I just keep telling myself it could be worse. A 90 day deployment is nothing compared to what some have to do. I’m sure there will be more on the deployment later but it dawned on me in November that I wanted Benji baptized before Matt left.

Did you know you have to go to Baptism classes? Well, I had no idea. Good thing I called in November because classes are only offered once a month and you first have to be an official parishioner, and you can only do that the first Sunday of the month, and they schedule 1 baptism session per month…. Blah blah blah. Thanks to Baptism, we are now official parishioners (I also volunteered to bake for funereal luncheons~ I figured I had to check off one of the 900 volunteer options and Matt might not appreciate the rosary making circle). The class was 2 Sundays for 2 hours, not too bad but a little reminiscent of the marriage class we took a couple of short years ago. I took one for the team and went to the first one alone (Guard is ruining my life) but Matt joined me for week 2 (after QUITE the night out with his friends – NO sympathy from me Sunday morning).

Takeaways:

-Anyone can baptize another person into the Catholic faith.

-Anything can be used to baptize someone (examples given were spit and bathtub water)

-You can be baptized by any name you would like (example given was ‘Ballpoint Pen’)

Those Baptism Class Instructor Couples are so silly.

Banjo needed a God family so we tried to be Switzerland on the matter and pick one from each side.

Kat's brother Pat

Matt's sister Kat

Uncle Patrick dubbed himself “Rodfather” (you haven’t foregotten his obsession with the name have you?), shocking. Who knew ‘Rodney’ would make its way to God.

Anyway, after a little brunch/celebration/chance for Benji to wear his cute white sweater pants outfit, Benji took a bath and became a member of the Catholic church. Go God!

family time

no more original sin!

godparents

Takeaways:

-White is a good color on babies, they consume white and spit up white.

-Due to an Etsy seller issue, I have a supply of white leather loafer baby shoes fitting size 0-12 months. Classy.

-Benji was not the only one at the Baptism in white leather loafers (the other was the godfather of the baby baptized in a ‘diva’ bib)

-Sweater pants are cute, button crotches suck (too bad I had already purchased a red sweater pants Christmas outfit)
-French Toast Casseroles are delicious
-When I say I want to buy Benji a crucifix, I mean a cross MATT.

Obviously a Baptism is more important and serious than the items mentioned but I won’t get into the details. Catholic or not, believe in something!

This was Benji's reaction to the whole experience...

snores.