funny | James & Jax

The Unpredictability of Toddlers

08. May 2012 · 5 comments · Categories: Oops, Raising a boy, Talking about food!, Toddlerhood · Tags: boyhood, food talk, funny, life, toddlerhood

I think I had mild food poisoning on Sunday, thanks to some habanero cheese on my Cinco de Mayo fajita Saturday night. I spent most of the day nauseated and unable to eat, hanging out in my mom’s bathroom while she and Jax had all the fun outside in the whole 2 hours of sunshine we had all weekend. Yesterday, I nervously ate small bland meals all morning and afternoon, hoping that my belly would be back in top shape for a big family dinner at Bonefish Grill.

Fortunately, I felt fine by 6:00 when I got there. I even dared to order a blueberry martini. Yum, right? Oh it was so delicious that I even ordered a second one.

I could tell Jax might be a handful from the minute I buckled him into his car seat on the drive to the restaurant, and he didn’t disappoint. He was ornery, whiny, and everything you’d expect an almost-3-year-old to be. Despite promises of dessert, several sheets of stickers, a coloring book and two boxes of crayons, and a tractor full of Little People, I could not contain my usually containable child last night as he preferred to poke things with chopsticks and play with sugar packets.

But back to that second martini.

Just as it was delivered, Jax knocked a whole glass of ice water, which, as you might imagine, is VERY COLD, all over my lap. Even my underwear and shoes were wet. Fun times.

As I jumped up out of my seat, I had to mentally tell myself not to cry. In public. With half the restaurant staring at me.

Oh, and then they brought out our entrees, of course.

At that point, I walked my wet ass (and Jax) to the bathroom, hoping for one of those mega-hand dryers that makes your skin sag with its ferocity. No dice. So then I decided to pack it up and call it a night.

Gotta love dining out with a toddler. The worst part is that I didn’t get to take even one sip of that second blueberry martini!

Has this ever happened to you? Did you cry??

Bored with a Toddler & a Glass of Wine

30. April 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: My happiness project, Play! · Tags: funny, Happiness, just for fun, playtime, toddlerhood

Don't you just LOVE Photo Booth?!

There may have been wine involved in this....

Sideways shot

Glow

All smiles

God I love this kid. He shares my nerdy obsession with Photo Booth.

What’s a typical night like in your house??

The Cure for Nostalgia (& Maybe a New Blog)

21. March 2012 · 9 comments · Categories: life lessons, On writing, Reading is fun · Tags: diaries, friendship, funny, life, memories, reading, writing

This week’s Mother’s Pride blog carnival really got me thinking about what I’m proud of about myself, and I’d like to add one more thing: I’m proud of myself for writing down so many of my thoughts and feelings throughout my life.

As I’ve mentioned (several times…sorry), I’ve been feeling rather nostalgic lately. I’ve been mourning some of the people I’ve lost touch with through the years, some of the wild and crazy times, my long hair and size 2 body….

I’ve been referring to it as suburban mom angst.

I love my family and friends and the life I have now, believe me. But for me, it is possible (and hopefully forgiveable) to also miss some of my “past” life, too.

So the other day, I busted out my box of remaining diaries and poetry notebooks and gave myself one full hour to read some of my thoughts, dated as far back as 1987, when I was 10 years old.

I had a blast. At times, I felt as if I were reading the diaries of someone not me. I cannot believe how much I’ve changed over the years. I’ve changed and changed and then changed some more. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of glimmers of the girl I once was, of the thoughts I once had. For example, in these About Me books I used to love to fill out, I wrote down my likes and dislikes in 1996 and again in 2000. If I had to write those lists again, I know that many of my likes and dislikes would appear on the third list.

Those lists made me laugh out loud. This morning, I shared them on Twitter. No, I prefer not to share them here (Hi, Mom!) but I will share some of the equally funny responses I got on Twitter about my dislikes:

I’m with 22-year-old [James] on toilet paper, and with 19-year-old [James] on “All My Life.”

Haha oh I love it! Sounds like you had some major men problems. And body issues :( But the pregnant thing cracked me up!

I like how you disliked chores AND a dirty house.

i hate guys up my ass too :P

Hahahaha! That is a very long list..Hilarious.

lol! Basically as a teen u didn’t like anyone? Sounds typical. ;)

What else made me laugh out loud were all the pages of my whining and venting about drama with my girlfriends, about how the boys I dated were treating me, about having to do homework, about hangovers.

These days, my diaries are much different. Oh there is still plenty of whining, but most of it is about not being able to pee alone or having to share my makeup with my 2-year-old son or my husband watching too much tv.

Anyway, reading my diaries (and the bad poetry from my adolescence) cured my nostalgia, for the most part, because it helped me realize how I’ve romanticized the past as I grew more distant from it. Looking back at what I’d written then, it doesn’t seem like something I’d ever want to go back to, really. I had awful taste in dudes back then, and I don’t miss waiting for one to call when he said he would or calling me drunk after midnight! I had some major drama queen friends back then, too. Sure, I miss some of the awesome times I had with those people, but all I need to do is bust out my diaries and do a little reading and I feel like I’m right back there again.

The best part is, I can close the book when I want.

Some of the diary entries, poems, and lists are too funny to not share. So I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a second blog just to showcase them. There, I would post that stuff and also invite YOU to post your own rants & raves from your youth.

Whaddya think? Does that sound like something you’d read and/or contribute to?

Flat (How Jogging with Jax Is Going So Far)

09. March 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: Health/Fitness, Oops, Play!, Toddlerhood · Tags: boyhood, fitness, funny, life, playtime

It’s the story of my life: I get super excited about an endeavor, and then my hopes are deflated (in this case, literally).

If you recall, I’m on a mission to drop the last few stubborn pounds of baby weight. At my friend’s suggestion, I decided to start running with Jax. I borrowed a jogging stroller from a friend and got all excited about the idea. I busted that monstrous thing out the other night, ready to clean it and put it to use after dinner, and whaddyaknow–my husband pointed out, “You know it has a flat tire, right?”

Gah! No, I did not know this!

It’ll probably take me a month just to find the time to remove the tire and get my busy butt to a gas station to pump it up. Worse yet, what if it can’t be pumped full of air and requires a bike shop to replace the tire or inner tube? In that case, I will probably never get around to using it.

Until then, at least Jax can burn some calories using it as a jungle gym:

New living room furniture/jungle gym

With pillows!

Jax, modeling our flat (while I cry onto my iphone)

“Ref, You Suck!”

23. January 2012 · 4 comments · Categories: Family, Play!, the parenting club, Toddlerhood · Tags: fears, funny, life, playtime, sports, toddlerhood

Yesterday, my husband and I took a big risk and accompanied Jax to his first professional hockey game: the Flyers vs. the Bruins. We had amazing seats 3 rows from the ice, just off the blueline near the Bruins’ goalie. The tickets were given to me by a season ticket holder with fantastic seats, due to either has awesome connections, great luck, or a lifetime of being a Flyers fan. In my youth (long, long ago), I was also a Flyers fan, so I was kind of excited to use the tickets. (Read: to check out whether there are any hot players on the current Flyers team like there was back in the 80s when I was a fan.)

From the moment I brought the tickets home and my husband said, “We should take Jax,” I was uncertain whether taking a 2-year-old to a professional hockey game would be wise. Ok, that’s sugarcoating it—I was downright scared that Jax would hate it, and we’d have to leave before the end of the first period, wasting our amazing seats. For weeks I considered getting a sitter and making the game a date night event for just the 2 of us. I thought about all the things that could go wrong—diaper blowouts in a public place, a kid terrified of all the loud noises, and so on.

And then I decided to throw caution to the wind & live a little. “Screw it, let’s take him,” I said to my husband in a hasty, decisive moment I was certain I’d later regret.

Now, the day after, I’m glad we took him. He was the hit of our section—Flyers fans to our left and right commented on how cute it was when Jax sang “Let’s go, Flyers!” completely unprovoked and spontaneously—at appropriate moments, too!

Jax was interested in the action for nearly the entire game. I watched as his eyes followed the puck up and down the ice. I thank Dinosaur Train for this—he’s been repeatedly watching the episode where dinosaurs at the North Pole play ice hockey.

We stayed all 3 periods, and even into overtime and the shoot-out that ended the game with a Flyers loss, sadly.

There were a few moments that made me nervous,though—the constant fighting that broke out (which prompted Jax to give the players a “time out”), the chants of “Ref, you suck!” and “Asshole,” the fried food being offered every few feet (so we couldn’t help but indulge in some fried dinner), the loud-o-meter that suddenly and repeatedly prompted the crowd to scream as loud as possible, and again, the fighting. Oh, the fighting. I can’t resist the urge to tell that tired old joke again:

I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.

We have tickets for another Flyers game in March, this time with my entire family, courtesy of my brother Danny, who is the biggest Flyers fan I know. Now that I know Jax can hang—and even enjoy the game—I’m very excited! We even bought him some Flyers gear, in our excitement.

Some photos & a video of our big day (in the video, can you see how tired we are after the game?):