Crying in the Cart

Two is the age that everybody warns you about and you sort of nod your head and think “that won’t be my sweet little darling” until the day comes and right before your very eyes your innocent princess turns into a little a-hole. Yes, I just called my kid an a-hole because honestly 50% of the time these days thats exactly what she acts like. Two is an evil age that sucks the very being out of your child and makes them act like they have been possessed.

Case in point, the other day I went to the grocery store with Em and she happened to see one of those massive carts with the car attached to the front. You the know the ones… they have the tiny ass cart attached and no room for groceries because the car is so effing huge. And navigating them around a grocery store is near impossible so you end up knocking shit off the shelves left and right. Evidently a man designed that thing, you know, “the bigger, the better!” Well she saw one. And then just as quickly as she saw it a lady and her son grabbed it. I immediately did a happy dance in my head for dodging the “car cart” shopping trip but my happiness faded seconds later when I realized I was dealing with a stage 5 meltdown.

Now, I debated leaving but we were out of milk… and ice cream so it was necessity. I pulled out all of my tricks, lollipops, the iPad, I said I would get her something “reaaaaaaaally cool” from the grocery store if she stopped crying but she was still pissed. I started to try and put her in the regular old cart at this point and she went completely straight leg on me. It was like trying to work a jackhammer. Moms are walking by and giving me the “your kid is terrible” look and then moms (with a-hole toddlers too) are giving me the “been there done that” look.. I finally got her into the cart and at this point I am sweating… its 32 degrees out and I was stripping in front of the Harris Teeter.

We start walking in and she sees those effing gumball machines with toys inside them and starts screaming that she “NEEDS ONE” I know I’m not supposed to cave to this behavior but I really just wanted to get into the damn store at this point so I start digging in my purse. I was struggling to find a quarter when a man handed me one. How sweet huh? He must’ve witnessed “cart-gate” and felt sorry for me.  I let her pick and we got the toy and life was good again. I even managed to make it halfway through the store without any more incidents until it happened … we ran into the damn “Car Cart” and just like that all of the trauma came rushing back to her. She screamed the rest of  the time until I got her back into the car and then like magic she was fine. The “car cart” brings out the evil in my child.

I’ve decided that in the future when I go grocery shopping, I am going to bring lots of quarters…

and a blind fold!

Hats Off

A few weeks ago while I was putting away some of Emmie’s Christmas gifts in her closet (ok so I procrastinated so what!) she noticed one of her Summer hats. This wasn’t a NEW hat. It wasn’t anything particularly ornate but for some reason or another it struck her fancy and she popped it on her head. A few hours later as we were getting ready to go outside and play I asked her if she wanted to leave the hat inside, you know to keep it “safe”. She replied in a very matter of factly “NOOOO!” and that was that.

Fast forward a few weeks and the hat is still here. She went 4 straight weeks in that damn hat. We slept in it. We bathed in it. We jumped it in. We ate in it. What began as a fedora transformed into a bit of a bowler. The hat had taken on an entirely different shape.

Just so you can fully grasp the severity of the situation here are some pictures as proof of the obsession:

   
    
    
    
    
  
I have tried on a number of occasions to swap the original hat out for a newer more constructed one but eventually the ole’ “Cowboy Hat” (as she refers to it) comes poppin’ back out. A couple of times she has been in the middle of doing something, stopped dead in her tracks, reached up and felt her head and screamed “MYYYYYY HAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT??????” The sheer terror in her voice tells me this is not a joke and regardless of what I am doing…. cooking dinner; showering; going to the bathroom…. I must retrieve said hat.

When the evil Snowzilla reared her head the hat briefly took a break and an Elsa dress appeared in it’s place. Not sure which one I preferred. The dress was pretty disgusting by day 3 and she refused to give me a moment to wash it. So I honestly was a bit relieved when on day 6 the trusty hat made its way back into the daily mix.

I’m fairly certain she will be wearing this hat when she starts Pre-K next year (waaaaaaah!) and when she celebrates her 3rd Birthday in November. And its even quite possible that it makes it all the way to Christmas.

That is unless that ole’ cowboy hat just happens to “accidentally” get stuffed faaaar back into the closet somewhere. But then let’s hope that bitch Elsa doesn’t show back up.

Just Snow Away!

So here’s the deal… I actually really like snow, or did. I was totally amped up when my “weather freak” husband was running around this house last week shouting out things like “Blizzard” and “record-breaking snowfall amounts” I even got gitty at one point. But now, well now those words are evil. We are on day FIVE of what is being referred to as Snowzilla and rightfully so. That bastard rolled into town Friday night and ripped every shred of independence and freedom I had. Our streets have yet to be plowed. Well except for the one pass through we got because Bobby had someone from his work come out and attempt to free us. It didn’t work. I’m still here.

If this was 3 years ago I probably would be relishing in the fact I was trapped in my house and couldn’t do anything or go anywhere. No responsibilities, WOOHOOO!  Well, shit is a lot different these days and I have one very active responsibility. Being snowed in with a toddler is a lot like watching a pinball machine. That thing shoots up and bounces around, dinging off of everything in its path until finally it just crashes to the bottom until you reload it and it starts all over again. Well five days of pinball and I’m officially done. I need out. I need civilization. For God’s sake I need Target. I feel like I have been buried alive in this house.

I’ve tried everything I possibly can to keep Em entertained. We’ve baked, we’ve played dress-up, we’ve watched Frozen (698 times), we’ve done crafts; we’ve gone in the evil snow everyday (twice a day – sometimes more), we’ve made snow ice cream. I legit don’t have anymore fun in me. Things got so bad inside that I actually opted to go shovel mass amounts of snow yesterday versus being inside with Emmie. My back was breaking but I could hear the chaos from the window and I just kept telling myself “you can do this, this is easier!” Bobby kept coming out to tell me that I didn’t have to do that much and I could come in, but I’m no fool, I knew he just wanted me to relieve him of “pinball” duty.

Now there was some talk of another possible snow storm this weekend and I don’t want to be dramatic but if that happens I may just have to hitch a ride with a snow plow (if they ever come) and fly to someplace tropical. Sorry Emmie, mommy will write.

 

Help Wanted

This past weekend I indulged in some party behaviors and I paid for it the next day. Let me just tell you. Hangovers and motherhood don’t mix. Thank the sweet, sweet Lord I had spent the night at my parents and my sister was in town. Translation: Emerson is still alive today!

We had gotten a babysitter so we all could go to Bobby’s parents big “End of Summer Party” and let me tell you that poor girl practically ran out of the house when we got home. I barely remember what I said to her but I know we were a hot mess. Don’t worry … my sister was the DD. We walked in, said “hi” and then Bobby immediately started heating up the food he had stolen from the party. So yeah, you can see why she wasn’t exactly into chit-chatting.

After the feast I headed up to bed with the monitor in my hand. I don’t really know why because I promptly passed out. I wouldn’t have heard a freight-train falling on the house I was so unconscious. Luckily for me, my girl likes her sleep. The next morning Bobby and I woke up and looked at the clock … 9:47am WTF! How in the hell did we sleep that late? Who has the baby? Where are we? And who in the eff is punching me in the head right now?

I tried to walk down the stairs but someone kept tripping me (no, seriously I swear). Bobby said I was embarrassing so I tried to say something smart-assy back … “shut-up” came out. The party was fun, but this shit sucked.

I ended up getting “sick” four times that day. FOUR. EFFING. TIMES. I sat on the couch as my mom, dad and sister played with Emmie so that I could recover from my first night out REALLY drinking in months.

I truly am embarrassing.

Laundry Day

So the other day was laundry day in our house. As I was juuuust finishing stacking up the pile of fresh, clean laundry, Em came plowing through with her Puff paws smearing them all over the clean clothes. It was like that scene from Jurassic Park when all the dinosaurs are running from the T-Rex. Well my neatly folded clothes were the other dinosaurs and Emmie was the T-Rex. The ruins of what was just seconds earlier clean and fresh and neatly folded, laid strung across the room sticky, dirty and wrinkled. She was laughing and smiling and clearly very proud of herself, oblivious to my annoyance. She then of course, started doing super cute things like clapping for me as I was collecting all the clothes and chanting my name like I was Rocky “MOMM-MA!” “MOOOMMMM-UUUHH!” (alright I get it, you’re cute, I’m not mad. dammit.)

You see I’ve decided (or rather I’ve learned) that life is messy. I know that you’ve heard that like 9 billion times before and I had too but it really didn’t hit me, like what it meant, until my house actually started to get messy. The thing is, I have a mild moderate case of OCD and there are days that having a child makes it pretty effing impossible to keep the house neat and tidy. Sometimes I find Puffs in between the sheets in my bed or chewed up and smashed against the dishwasher and I have to remind myself that I know that she’s only 10 months old and she’s just getting started. So instead of waging a war with myself, I’m learning to just let it go. I can either spend the blissful free time I have while she naps scrubbing dishwashers or I can be a normal freaking person and sit the eff down, eat something that doesn’t come out of a wrapper and watch something other than Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. OCD cured!

Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in it all. We waste our time worrying about the silly things instead of the things that really matter like spending time with our tiny little T-Rexes.

So around here, we say screw it …
everyday is laundry day.

Oh BABY

So I have a story to tell and I’m not proud of it. Growing up as a younger sibling you are exposed to things that perhaps you might not see if you were say … an only child. Well due to the fact that I had an older sister I was lucky enough to enjoy the wonderful world of Dirty Dancing at a pretty early age. I loved that movie from the moment I watched it. I memorized all of the songs and would tease my hair to try to make it all poufy just like Baby’s. I wore those sweet, white Keds night and day. Well I also practiced the dance moves night and day.

Our basement wasn’t finished and we had these poles (pretty sure you see where I’m going here) … and I would swing around them pretending to be Baby as if I was ready for my “lift”. My sister would sneak down and watch and then she would scream up to my mom,”MOM, ANNIE’S ON THE POLE AGAIN … MAKE HER STOP, IT’S WEEEEEEIRD!” My mom wasn’t too worried, she saw the innocence in it all and thought it was funny. She would tell me about it years later and I was horrified. “I can’t believe you let me do that?”

Fast-forward to present day. I am a mother to a little girl who likes to suck on knobs. Yep, you heard me. I have a knob sucker on my hands. Not quite sure what to do about this, but the girl loves her knobs.

Pretty sure this is my payback for the pole. And I can’t exactly blame Baby for this one.

 

 

Say WHAT?

So Em said her first word and unlike what my mother had predicted it wasn’t a curse word. Apparently due to the fact I swear like a sailor that was the safe bet. It might as well have been because Emerson’s first word was (wait for it) DADA!

I know, I know … all you moms are sitting there saying so what, that happens all the time. And your kid probably said Dada or Daddy before they said Mom, Mommy or Momma too. But dammit that wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I mean I spend 24/7 with this freaking kid and Bobby puts in about 3 hours a day during the week, due to his working schedule. What were the odds she said his name before mine?! In fact that’s how every effing major event with her has been going. I am home with her all damn day and then the nano second he gets home and I walk out of the room she decides it’s a fine time to start rolling over or crawling or I don’t know, speaking words. I have pretty much missed all the big events and Bobby has been present for EVERY DAMN ONE. What kind of shit is that?

I feel like she is just messing with me at this point.

Well I am on to her. If she thinks I am gonna let her walk on his watch she’s got another thing coming.

I’m not above putting restrictive clothing on her while I’m not around… juuuuuust to be safe. 😉

Mother of all Birthdays

It’s no coincidence that my birthday falls so close to Mother’s Day. In fact I was actually born on Mothers Day. When I was growing up I used to tell my mom it was because I was God’s gift to her (humility has never been my strong suit). The funny part of that statement is that while I was adorable, I was also a holy terror. To sum it up… I was a leash kid. I would torment my dear mother daily. Running off whenever I could, only surfacing when I heard her crying and begging for me to come out, as if her crying meant I had achieved my goal. Hence the need for a leash. Like I said… Holy.Terror.

I did the usual running away bit pretty often too and when that didn’t work I would try my hand at some fake falls down the stairs. Again, this needing attention thing started young. But I’m pretty sure the worst was when I was in 2nd grade and I was so mad at my parents that I went to school and told my teacher I didn’t want to live in my house anymore because my parents we’re “mean to me.” They quickly treated it as a serious situation and sent me to the guidance counselor for further investigation. Luckily my mom’s friend worked at the school and intervened before I was sent off to social services and a new home. I got a nice big dose of reality that day when my mom explained to me what could should have happened and I think my mom did too. It was then that she learned there was no limit to my dramatic flare for attention. Her hands have been full ever since.

She warned me that someday I would have a daughter and it would all come back to me. Well Em isn’t quite old enough yet to be giving me those type of heart attacks but I’m pretty confident she is slowly making her way towards that leash. She’s started this new thing where she pretends like she is choking and riiiiiight before I lose my shit and begin the CPR she smiles and giggles in a “gotcha” way. Yep, totally my kid.

For twenty-nine years, as of yesterday (yes, I totally just busted my age for the entire blogosphere to know) my mom has been enduring countless heart palpitating moments brought to her by yours truly and she has always said that it was worth it … and the craziest part is that she truly means it. She would tell me that on that Mother’s Day twenty-nine years ago when I was born it was the best gift she could have received. And I totally get it now.

Last Sunday was my first Mothers Day and I enjoyed every.single.second.of.it. The getting to sleep in on Sunday, the snuggles, the homemade gifts with Emmie’s face on them, and the excuse to say things like “can you hand me that? …. its Mother’s Day!” I may have just found a new favorite holiday.

My birthday is exactly four days after Mothers Day and for weeks Bobby has been asking me what he could get me for my gift. For the life of me I couldn’t think of anything that I truly even remotely wanted. That’s when it hit me. I have absolutely every single thing I have ever wanted. Being a mother was my birthday gift this year. As cliché as that sounds it is exactly how I feel. I am so completely content with being a mommy that nothing else matters. That little nugget is better than anything he could buy in the store and her smiles are more priceless than any gift. I’ve officially become one of THOSE moms who say things like that and really mean it. Well shit, twenty-nine just slammed into me like a ton of effing bricks.

But I didn’t say anything when he got me a gift anyway … you know, no need to hurt his feelings. 😉

1/2 of my heart

Happy 1/2 Birthday Emerson!

My little nugget is already 6 months old today. One 1/2 year of life behind her. It seems surreal to me that just 6 short months ago I was waddling my ass into that delivery room with no idea how my life was about to change. In some ways it seems like it’s been a lifetime. Like she’s been with me forever because I can’t imagine how my heart ever beat before her. And then in other ways it seems like time is flying by and she is growing just too damn fast. Like I blinked and I went from screaming for an “effing epidural” to mastering the art of the one-handed dishwasher load.

You see I was never really a “baby person” before I became a mom. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved being around kids. I even used to coach the tiny team at my old all-star cheerleading gym and I friggin LOOOOVED it. I couldn’t get enough of those little monkeys. You see it’s the newbies, the tiny tinies, that scare the shit outta me. All that “watch the neck!” crap makes me feel like I’m holding the freaking Hope Diamond and the pressure makes me want to have an anxiety attack. But something changed when I had Em. Something clicked and the fear faded. Maybe when it’s your own you’re more comfortable or maybe it’s a “mom thing” I dunno, but I went from having little to no experience around newborns to being fully responsible for keeping one alive in the blink of an eye. Talk about an effing anxiety attack. HO.LEE.SHIT!

But here we are… she’s made it through 6 months of life practically unscathed. I mean I still have no effing idea what I’m supposed to be doing most of the time but I fake it till I make it and no one knows the difference. For the most part I play the role of put together stay-at-home mom pretty well. I wear yoga pants to the grocery store and everything. Overall Emerson is happy and healthy so I know that I’ve got to be doing SOMETHING right, right?

The last six months have been the most incredibly, exhausting, fulfilling, wonderfully brutal and rewarding months of my life. Everyday she is learning something new and it amazes me to think that just 6 months ago she was this tiny little blob that just laid there and now she is giggling and rolling over like a real person. Everyday I am learning something new too. I am learning how to be a better mother just by being with her. She makes me want to try harder then I ever have. Through this whole new-mom adventure I truly feel like she has been the one who has taught me. I am so thankful that she chose me to be her mom.

How lucky am I?

 

Monday, Bloody Monday!

Well … I have been planning on starting a blog for a while now. I have talked about it in theory on-and-off for a few years. Ginger, my amazingly hysterical cat, has been keeping the Facebook world entertained for sometime now and I have had more than a few requests for a blog to be started in her honor. Then I got knocked up, and I handled it with such grace truth, that again I was asked to start a blog. Well I survived (barely) the 9 months of pregnancy and my little nugget is currently rounding the bend on her 6 month of life. She’s happy and healthy and honestly that’s a little shocking to me considering I don’t know what the eff I am doing 98% of the time. But I figure what better time to start a blog than now,  before she learns to read and knows I am talking about her.

So, for the past week or so I have been secretly tweaking and customizing and editing, you know in all my “free time”, so that when I let this baby rip she would be nice and pretty for ya. Well, in true Holupka household fashion, it all went to shit before I could get it up and running. As I was about to post my first official blog post this morning Emmie started going bat shit crazy and needed to be held. Whilst being held she managed to kick the computer and delete all of my beautiful edits and the first official blog post I had saved and ready to roll out. Then for her big finale she head-butted me and busted open my lip. I’ve been cleaning blood out of the cracks of the laptop all day and trying my best to get the blog back to a layout that doesn’t completely suck. I don’t have the time or energy to try and recreate what I had and if I hold off any longer I know I will just keep delaying it. So i’ve decided this would just be my first post because there are three things I know for sure: 1.) I can always go back and fix it later. 2.) I promise I will get better at this if you bare with me. and 3.) Em is just getting started!