A Little of This, a Little of That

Just realized it had been a while since I had posted anything.  Mostly because I have been so busy with school and my internship I barely remember to shower, let alone blog.  So I decided to do a highlight reel of sorts, picking out the best (and worst) things that have happened lately.

No Phone Zone

Coming up in 5 short weeks I will be a college graduate, with this comes a huge loan repayment.  I have been looking for online jobs so I can keep up this stay at home gig, but I have had no luck.  I decided on a whim to apply online to a few retail stores for a Visual Merchandising manager position.  As I was sitting in the mall parking lot the other day, getting ready to leave, I receive a call back from a lady about one of the positions.  I answered it figuring it was the crazy lady yelling in Spanish that usually calls me once a week.  Mason was yelling, just to hear himself I’m sure, there were a lot of other background noises, and it turns out I miss her name and what company she is calling from.  I felt about 5 seconds behind for the rest of the conversation, but I gather enough information out to realize I have a phone interview for that Friday.  Friday rolls around, she never calls.  I’m assuming she thought she was talking to the slowest college graduate on earth and wanted nothing more to do with me.  Moral of the story: when in doubt let it go to voice mail.

Turkey Time!

My family is lucky enough to be spending Thanksgiving with friends, southern friends, which means amazing food that we will never eat at home, because as much as I try I can never find it in my heart to use as much butter as Paula Deen.  I thought, wow I won’t even have to make a turkey or all the sides this year, how easy!  Can’t wait for Turkey Day!

Photographic Aspirations

I recently won a contest through a different blog site, Joy the Baker. This gave me the chance to get $100 worth of holiday cards through the site minted.com.  So after setting up all of our Christmas decorations we decided to try to get a great picture of Mason smiling by the tree.  We were clearly delusional.  Out of the 56 shots we took two turned out relatively well, but then I uploaded them onto our computer to find out that in one of those two his entire face was covered in snot!  Needless to say we used the other photo and hopefully we will have a beautiful holiday card.  During this process we did something that can only be considered one of the worst parenting moves ever. We took a candy cane off of the tree and gave it to Mason.  At first it was just to hold, and then it moved onto him eating it.  Now all he wants is “nandy” off the tree.  Way to think that one through, huh.

Here are a few of the more questionable shots.

Sit still, you guys are crazy!

Oh wait, candy, of course I'll sit still for candy.

Ha ha, fooled you, back to being crazy, must be all the sugar!

It was a simple trip to Target...

I’ve known for awhile that Mason is getting to the age where everything needs to be done his way and he needs to show his independence.  Even though I have known this was coming, even witnessed it on occasion, I’m pretty sure I had decided to ignore the fact that he is becoming his own person, as I am sure a lot of mothers do.  Well it blew up in my face today, in public, Target to be exact. 

It was just a spur of the moment trip to grab diapers; look around, more of a wasting time adventure than anything really. The time change had thrown Mason off of his schedule and we were trying to delay bedtime just a little (wait, could that have been mistake number one?).  As we were walking in Mason yells, “Cart!” as he always does and we asked him if he wanted to ride in the cart, to which he replied, “NO!” as he always does.  We decided (stupidly) to let him walk as long as he held a hand. 

He listens for a while, probably just buttering us up for his master plan.  It starts with him pushing the cart.  At barely 32” tall he needs a little help with this so I had my hand along the top bar while he pushed from down below.  He looks up and says, “Excuse me, Excuse me” and pulls my arms off the cart.  Scott steers the cart from the side, so a melt-down is avoided.  Then our clever little man decides to ditch the cart, besides who needs that slowing you down anyway? 

He takes off into the clothing section, neither Scott or I notice for a second, which really points out what superb parenting skills we have.  Scott runs after him and decides to hold him, or try to.  A wiggling, yelling, grunting match ensues, which is embarrassing and frustrating.  We know that Mason just wants to walk, but we also want to leave with the same number of people that we came with. 

We go through the store and more of the same continues to happen. Cut to us standing in line.  I am so frustrated and worn down I can’t stop laughing which is only cheering Mason on. He makes a run for the Mr. Clean floor cleaner they have by the checkout, yelling, “Juice, Juice!”  I scoop him up and he starts to kick, yell, and get red in the face, the whole nine yards.  People begin to stare, which makes my face turn red; I’m sure we looked like quite the pair.  Scott gives me the keys and stays behind to pay.  I tote a screaming Mason out to the car and try to put him in his car seat, notice I said try.  He begins to go into stiff body mode; every kid has one, you know, where all of their little muscles tense up and no matter how much you can bench press it is nearly impossible to get them back into a seated position. 

Finally I succeed, but now he is sitting in the back seat completely silent the entire ride home.  Scott asks him if he is mad at Mommy and he says, “mmm, hmm”.  Never mind that this is what he says in reply to any yes or no question (the other day I asked him if he was covered in poop and he said, “mmm, hmm”)  I am still heartbroken.  I know this was only the beginning and it makes me dread the toddler years, maybe I’ll start shopping online!