Irony, thy name is projectile dinner vomit

I totally rolled my eyes at Jack's speech-language pathologist today when she suggested we put tiny pieces of bubble gum in the back corners of Jack's mouth to encourage him to chew things up. I mean COME ON. Like I am going to give my not-quite 2 year-old gum. Does she get a kick back from a dentist to give that advice?

Then Jack took too big a bite out of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup after dinner and projectile vomited all over the dinner table, and we started thinking about helping him chew.

But no gum. Or gummy worms or Twizzlers or fruit snacks which were her other 3 suggestions. Seriously, she gave some terrible nutritional advice. Like frying all his vegetables. Or encouraging him to dip all his food in ranch dressing. WTF?

The thing is, Jack has to have huge pieces of food (like a whole apple) or teeny little pieces (chopped apple). Medium pieces (apple slices) are hazardous to his health because he shoves them all in at once and sometimes doesn't even chew. He's almost died on orange slices a couple of times (you'd think once would be all it took for us to start cutting up his oranges. And yet.)

The SLP thinks that this might be due to oral motor difficulty-- the same difficulty that delayed his speech (I say delayed in the past tense because he has 75 words now and normal for his age is 50 words, so he's not delayed per se. Still, he has pronunciation problems), so she comes to see us every month to 6 weeks. Today, she wanted to talk about feeding issues, which was annoying because I am determined to make food NOT an issue in our house. We don't make the kids eat anything ever. Our job is to offer healthy choices; their job is to decide what and how much they want to eat. Period. She thinks we need to get Jack to try different textures of food-- and I get that, I do-- but I am not going to ever go down the road of bite negotiation ("just take 5 bites..."). That's just not how we do things, and I don't think she understood my nutrition philosophy.

Jack was playing with this giant red ball with a handle that he loves to hop on but can never go near when Harry's around, and he periodicaly put the handle in his mouth and chewed on it, which I didn't think anything of. She started talking to me about how when I saw him with something non-foodlike in his mouth, I should redirect his oral sensory skills toward food or drink to encourage him to experiment with edible textures. I think this is just crap advice. If he is hungry or thirsty, he'll tell me. With words. So I just sort of smiled and nodded. A couple of minutes later, he chewed on the ball handle again, and she paused and looked at me. I smiled. She stared at me again. I kept smiling. Then she said, "Okay, so this is one of those moments I am talking about where you need to offer him food or drink, something positive for his mouth." As nicely as I could, I explained that he just ate a snack and had some milk and I thought he was okay to chew on the ball. She repeated the "positive in his mouth" bit, and I tried to explain that I don't think that's a healthy habit to teach-- that the only positive things for our mouths are edible. But my 3.5 year old LOVES to chew on the straps of his back pack and frequently walks into school carrying his back pack in his teeth. So maybe I'm weird.

Such the helper

I meant to take a picture of Jack with my vacuum, but he ran away before the camera flashed. I actually really love with picture because this is just how he runs, and he runs wherever he goes.

I am such a style blog fraud

I wore a pair of faded Old Navy Yoga pants, an Obama T-shirt, and a green Northface hoodie to preschool drop off today. As hideous as this ensemble sounds, I grabbed a quick workout before drop off, so my exercise clothes were legit. (Still awful looking, though, especially because they were accompanied by curly bangs-- the horror-- and two frizzy pigtails. And I saw Valerie, who of course looked adorable in a cute little dress and boots). But then Jack and I went home and met with his speech pathologist and then instead of showering, I made dinner and prepped lunch. Then I found myself back at preschool for pick up in the same damn outfit. (am still wearing it, actually) (may still be wearing it when my husband gets home) (shut up. It's not like I have thrown in the fashion towel, but the kids don't care, and I have an evening of paper grading to look forward to).

Harry is studying restaurants at school, so when I picked him up yesterday, I offered him a lunch date anyplace he wanted to go. He chose Potbelly (god love him), so we went happily to the mall food court.

Where Harry ordered his own sandwich and shake

He really, really wanted to sit at the super tall tables, but once he was settled in his chair, he got a bit of vertigo

And we moved to a shorty table, but he remained wary and kept checking how far away the ground was in case he fell

As you can imagine, he was an excellent conversationalist throughout the meal.


Wish me luck-- I'm going to try to shower before Jack's done napping, so the TV babysitter doesn't have to try to pacify BOTH kids.

Ahhhh, weddings.

I love weddings. The pretty dresses, the flowers, the happy people. This wedding was particularly lovable because my parents kept my children 150 miles from me and my husband. Ahhhhh. Our first overnight without the kids since November, and it was lovely. Of course we took a ton of pictures. I put some of us in the reception photo booth up atHarryTimes 365, and I am going to do an All Kinds of Pretty post later because Ben has such a unique suit-buying style.

But for this blog, I took pictures of all the things I love about weddings.

Love the pre-cocktail hour cocktail hour-- it's an essential wedding do.

Love having the opportunity to take family pics. Here's Ben's dad and his brothers. This picture makes me want to have 2 more boys. And if I did, in 50 years, they would all look JUST LIKE THIS.

Love doing silly stuff at the reception. Here are Ben's parents getting ready to step into the super fun photo booth. Good thing Dennis brought his chicken hat, huh?

Cousins!

Awww, the mother-son dance-- love it!

Hi, Julie! I bet you're reading this!

Something else I love about weddings? Wedding booze. Always a teeny bit lighter than regular booze-- a lot like resort booze, actually. You can drink it all night and not black out. Also, you feel like a total rock start because you have been drinking since 6, and you're still going strong. At my own wedding, I drank 15 vodka tonics. In any other circumstance, I'd be dead, but at my wedding? I was just happily drunk enough to scarf half a pizza in the bridal suite before falling asleep with my hoopskirts on. Wait. Maybe that's just a roundabout way of saying blacking out. Which means this whole treatise on wedding booze was bullshit.
But still. I loved this Absolut and tonic.

Shortly after we took this picture, we sneaked upstairs to our hotel room. No. It was so not like that. We passed out at 10 pm and slept until 8. Heaven.

Really, since my milk goes out of date tomorrow, it would have been wasteful to NOT dunk a bunch of Joe Joes

Alternate Title: Totally Random

Harry insisted on green everything yesterday. Green milk. Green eggs. Green ice cream. Green bath water. He also insisted on being outside from the minute he got out of school until bath time, which was more than okay with me. I exhausted my supply of inside activities in, oh, NOVEMBER, so 2 trips to the playground and an extended zoo visit and some yard time were just what the doctor ordered for all of us (and by the doctor, I mean me).

Two minutes after we took this picture, the stroller burst into snot and screams because we stayed at the zoo through naptime. Oops.

Around here, the return of ice cream season is a really big deal. We take it very seriously




Shut up. Wy wouldn't I have a style blog?

Ben's 31st birthday weekend

We had so much fun for Ben's birthday, even if we were superlame and skipped our fancy schmancy dinner reservation to go suit shopping and to a chain steakhouse. And even though we spent Sunday with no water. And even though I got Ben wineglasses, wine, and a wine of the month club membership-- all gifts that I can SHARE.

Ben started his morning with some presents

We had a birthday breakfast at a coffee shop

Then Ben's parents came to town, and we went to a bakery for brunch

Jack flailed his way out of the picture

I wonder what he wished for

Ben loved his cake even tough it had whipped cream frosting. He prefers whipped cream to buttercream-- how sick and wrong is that?

Jack capped off lunch by trying to yank Ben's extra face off

Even though we were waterless on Sunday, Harry and Jack were giddy with the delight of actually playing outside after a long, long winter.


We watched these guys fix our water for quite some time Sunday night.

Monday morning, I went to get my crazy checked out, ad Ben accompanied Harry's class to the fire station. (Which? Dude. We have been switching off field trips this year, and Ben gets the cool ones.)

I love Harry's field trip listening face.

Monday night, we finally cooked the Lobster Gram Ben's parents sent him for his birthday. (another shareable gift-- WIN!)

Pretty, huh? And really, really delicious.

Today, after my Fashion FAIL of a day, Ben worked late, and I let the boys have a pizza picnic in front of a Batman DVD while I read Parenting and decompressed.

Ben, thankfully, came home right before Harry's bedtime, and I am here, melted into the couch blogging and eating mini Snickers ice cream bars. The perfect night.

Don't forget to check out All Kinds of Pretty! We have another new blogger joining us today!

I think I am fine, in case you were worried.

The doctor I saw today (not my regular doctor but super nice) did not think I have a brain tumor. Instead, she told me to maybe calm down a little bit. (But to come back or to email her if I develop any scary symptoms or get too worried). She thinks it is either being caused by a low grade tonsil infection (my tonsil. they are so, so big. I wish my boobs were as big as my tonsils, you know, proportionately) or it may be a real smell, since Ben has smelled it sometimes. She also said if it's a real smell, I could legitimately be smelling it in my car and at work and that I should chill. Which? Easier said than done because when I opened the door to my office today, I was pleased to smell a stale, smoky smell (because that means it's real!). Then I ate my lunch w/o thinking of it at all, but now that I am done eating, I can smell it again, and I'm worried (when the same smell did not worry me 5 minutes ago). So yeah, Chill out. Also (and I forgot to mention this at the doc), sometimes it makes me cough. Would a manufactured smell make me cough?

So, yes. I am crazy.

In other words, nothing new to report.

Oh? Want to hear about THIS total clusterfuck?

A water main broke at the foot of our driveway yesterday, and we had NO WATER from 8-8. We also had a giant 14 ft hole at the bottom of our driveway, which was inconvenient, to say the least. We were thisclose to packing up our crap and heading to a hotel when the water came on. Poor tired Harry lost his marbles because he was so excited about the prospect of a night in a hotel, but Ben and I were thrilled to be able to shower (well, I was. Ben is kind of a dirty bastard. No offense).

Because it was finally a gorgeous day here, we spent the day away from home running errands, playing at the playground, eating out, and using the facilities at Target.
See, these sunglasses are chic on anyone

Jack trying out the booster seat. Not a good idea that.

Thankfully, Harry started dunking his hotdog in his chocolate peanut butter m&m custard sundae because then I stopped taking bites of the sundae. Which? best sundae ever. It's from a little custard place by our house that I probably drive by at least 3 times a day. I may stop for one of these sundaes every time I pass the place from now on. Then, in 6 moths, I will rule the Biggest Loser.

Funny beer. Anybody try it? I took this picture at lunch, and I so would have had 7 pints of this crap if I had known I would come home to STILL NO WATER. But that would have sucked because where would I pee??


A usual (or what will become usual), I will end this post by urging you to got to All Kinds of Pretty and leave us a comment or two. We've been talking about everything from church clothes to baby slings to sexy date night outfits in the last couple of days, so check it out!

Picnic! Phantom smells! Mom style blog!

I have not been here very much this week, and I have one good reason and one psycho one.

First, the psycho: I have been smelling a smoke smell since Wednesday night and Dr. Google and some crazy people in crazy chat boards have convinced me I have a brain tumor. I go to the doctor on Monday, and I have been spending all my time FREAKING OUT about it. Wednesday night, I smelled the smell, which I smelled about a month ago (but it went away) all over our house. Ben got a few whiffs of it too, and we thought it was coming from our neighbors' house (remember, we live in a townhouse and share a wall and we know our neighbors smoke.) One night-- right before the smell went away last month-- we smelled it really strongly sitting on the couch, and we mentioned it. Then we heard our neighbors' font door slam shut, so we thought they were outside smoking, heard us complain, and went inside. Then the smell went away for awhile (we did smell some broccoli cheese monstrosity coming from their house once in the interim). When I smelled it Wednesday night, I was not worried about a brian tumor because I assumed the smell was from the neighbors. Then I smelled in Thursday in my car on the way to campus. Still, I reasoned, my car is parked in my garage and it would make sense that it smelled kind of smokey if my house smelled that way. Then I smelled it in my office (and nobody else who came in my office smelled any smoke at all). Then I smelled it in my classroom. Then I freaked the fuck out.

This morning, I woke up with no smell (but we sleep with our door shut and our bedroom windows open). I used my netti pot, in case the smell is a result of something going on in my sinuses. I took jack to Little Gym and smelled not a whiff. We stopped at a coffee shop after gym class, and I smelled the smell again. But here's the thing-- it's a really thick, heavy, stale coffee and cigarettes smell-- not terribly different than the smell of a coffee shop, so I told myself that's what it was. Then I smelled it in the car. And now, sitting on my living room rug typing this, I smell it again. Maybe a hint earlier in the Target greeting card aisle, too. (I didn't smell it at all when I came home, but since I shut the windows and turned up the heat, it is back).

Ben thinks I am panicking and attributing any close smell to the "the smell" and creating some kind of weird sense memory. He swears that he also sometimes smells a smokey smell in our house (never as bad as I do, though), and he just basically thinks I am losing my mind. Which? I wouldn't be surprised-- I've been thisclose to batshit crazy for years now.

So that's the psycho reason, but here's the happy one: the mom style blog I talked about on Tuesday, which is called All Kinds of Pretty. Find it here: http://www.allkindsofpretty.com.