Stupid is as KLZ Does

Ladies and gentlemen! Start your engines!

Oh, no wait. Sorry - wrong event.

Ladies and gentlemen! I am pleased to present to you the first-ever guest post on Midwest "Mom"ments. I apologize for the delay - I know I said it would be Tuesday, but frankly, well, I lied. Lesson learned; I will not be overly specific about such things in the future.

My friends, the witty and always entertaining, KLZ from Taming Insanity.

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When I heard that Jenn was going to be guest posting on my site about her top ten most embarrassing moments, I thought, "I can top them." Now, I know Jenn mostly as a sweet lady I know from the Internet. But I suppose it's possible that she makes an ass of herself as frequently as I do. I'm not sure... she might be able to win at this but... my whole life is kind of a bad sitcom.

But then I freaked out.

Because I had a problem. I could not remember ten embarrassing moments. Which is embarrassing in and of itself.

Apparently, when you make a jerk of yourself as frequently as I do, the moments kind of blur together.

So, without further ado, I present to you KLZ's list of embarrassing stuff.

1) My inner nerd is loathe to admit this but: I cannot spell the word embarrassing correctly. It's a real problem when I'm trying to convey my feelings - especially since embarrassed is a thing I feel frequently. Please excuse the typos in this post.

2) I have hit parked cars on 3 separate occasions. (Occassions is another word I can't spell.) That pales in comparison to when I ran my step mother-in-law's car into her garage. On my first wedding anniversary. Although I still maintain it was her fault, it led to an awkward morning.

3) After running my step mother-in-law's car into her garage and sobbing all morning, I celebrated my first anniversary by drinking heavily. I felt this would up my "Fun" quotient from sobbing mess to happily devoted wife. When I stumbled down some stairs, I realized I'd calculated that fun quotient incorrectly.

I'm honestly surprised my husband stuck around after that fun-filled first anniversary.

4) I played water polo in high school. I once had to pull myself out of the game because I'd broken my ankle. The awful part is I broke this ankle when I jumped into the pool, and plummeted through ten feet of water to slam into the bottom of the pool. No one would believe this had happened because it was that ridiculous. In fact, my coach was so mad at me for not playing that she refused to get me ice. Begging for ice for an appendage you hurt in a freak accident is... embarrassing.

5) When I was pregnant I was talking to my husband and took one small step to the side. At which point I involuntarily farted. I was as surprised as he was.

6) In high school I was also on the diving team. I'm not sure why because it's a well documented fact that I'm klutzy. At one point I was bouncing on the board (which is a normal warm up move) and my knees buckled under me. I fell onto my butt on a fiber glass board. My suit ripped as did the skin on my tush. My male coach has to spend 15 minutes cleaning the blood off my butt as well as my butt blood of the board.

Admittedly he was a lot more patient with this than when I stopped paying attention and walked off the side of the board.

Understandably, my parents feared diving season starting. They were always worried that DCFS would show up on our doorstep as I looked like the poster child for abuse.

I was pretty much just worried about saving my butt.

7) While getting ready for a dance at my date's house, my father instructed me not to let the car break down on the side of the road, conveniently leading to necking. Not wanting my father to think I had a nefarious hook up strategy I shouted for all to hear "Don't worry, I've got gas!"

A sentence which made my father's worries a moot point.

At the moment, that's all I can recall. Seven not-so-lucky moments.

Although I'm sure the return to the playground, as a mom this time, will lead me to many more moments to add to this list.

Hopefully they won't involve my rear end.

I Am Not A Baby!

I think when we were watching S grow, we noticed the nuances because all our attention was focused on her. With Baby R, our time and attention are divided, and so while I noted that she's started shaking her head "no", fully walking, saying new words like "sock" and "kitty", and freaking out when she saw Santa, I silently checked those off in my head without relishing each moment. And in the last week, it's as if she's been trying to get my attention to say, "I am not a baby anymore! I'm a toddler, dang it!" She's hit the independent stage where she wants to do it all herself. She wants to purely self-feed - "I don't need or want your help, Mommy." She fights being buckled into her car seat; she asserts herself when playing with toys instead of letting Sissy take them away without a fight. I am proud of her and excited to see this shift, but I'm also sad to see the baby-stage end.

At Bunko last night, a friend brought her 3.5 week old baby girl. So precious. So tiny. So... quiet. It was nice snuggling with her and soaking in her baby-ness, but I was surprised that I didn't feel the usual urge to have another that tends to happen when I'm around newborns. We are still debating having a third baby. I was really thinking we would in a year or two. But after last night, I felt content with having two. And I don't want a third to feel even more neglected - I struggle with splitting my attention between two as it is. The possibility of three is still on the table, but I would be happy if things stayed as they are, too.

Especially when I think about how our nights have been the last week. Ugh! Baby R is having a growth spurt. Sunday she ate every hour. And not just a tiny snack. An entire banana. A whole serving of yogurt. A full string cheese. Every hour! She would toddle over to the refrigerator and pull on the handles. She inevitably woke up in the middle of the night. She pointed to her door. I knew she was hungry. I also knew she wanted yogurt. I took her downstairs to the kitchen, put her in her highchair, and got a container out of the fridge. I even gave her her own spoon and some Cheerios on the tray to distract her while I fed her. I loaded the baby spoon, and directed it toward her mouth, hopeful that she was tired enough to not fight it. Nope. She wanted to feed herself. She squealed, turned her head and flapped her little arms in frustration. I retracted the spoon. Spoke to her soothingly, and tried again. Same reaction.

I'm all for letting toddlers learn to self-feed. The sooner, the better. But we just started when she turned 1 a month ago. She's at the point that she can dip the spoon in yogurt and lick it off. But she doesn't get much, so she usually puts her whole hand in and sucks the yogurt off. Inevitably, it drips down to her shirt (the bib went by the wayside a long time ago). Then at some point she manages to get it in her hair. So my approach is to strip her down and let her feed herself half-naked before bath time.  It works great for dinner. Not so much in the middle of the night.

So I tried one more time. Then I told her she could either let me feed her, or she could go back to bed. So back to bed she went, screaming. I told DH what had happened and if he wanted to try in a few minutes, he could. After about 10 minutes of her not settling down, he took her back downstairs. I heard the screams and smiled wryly to myself. So back to her crib she went. I knew it was for her own good, and she would be fine, but it still breaks my heart to hear my babies cry. So here's my Motherhood Confession for WMW: I had to head downstairs and turn on the TV for an hour til she was sound asleep. I wussed out. I left my DH upstairs to listen to her scream and make sure she didn't really need our help (like getting an appendage stuck in the crib bars). I am a wimpy mean mommy; I enforce the rule, then run away.  But I say, whatever it takes to make it happen. Last night. No middle of the night feeding. First night I can remember when I slept UNINTERRUPTED ALL NIGHT. If only I hadn't had a cough that woke me half a dozen times. Sigh.

Festive Popcorn Mix

I don't remember who gave me this recipe, but it's great for taking to potlucks because it makes a lot.

Popcorn Mix
2 pkgs microwave popcorn (I use plain if I can find it, or just light salt/butter)
5 cups Rice Krispies
1 large bag of M&Ms
2 cups lightly salted peanuts
1 pkg almond bark
1 pkg butterscotch chips

Pop popcorn. (Discard as many unpopped kernels as possible.) Melt almond bark in large stock pot. Stir in popcorn, then Rice Krispies, then peanuts. Add M&Ms and butterscotch chips last so they don't completely melt.

It's good all-year round, but here are a few suggestions to make it festive for Christmas:
- Use red & green M&Ms
- Use red and green Rice Krispies
- Portion the mix into Christmas-patterned Dixie cups

Let It Snow!

We got our first snow last night. It was bitter cold and really windy. It's hard to say how much snow we actually got because the wind just blew it all away. Based on the drifts and the low spots, I'd guess 2-3 inches. S wanted to play outside so badly today, but the windchill was -15 or something. On the radio they were talking about how the Chiefs played in San Diego today and it was supposed to be around 85. That means it was a 100 degree difference. Crazy!

I was supposed to do a 5k today (indoors!) with some friends. We met at my house to carpool. I said my goodbyes to the fam, and went out the door and down the walk. At the driveway, my foot slid in the snow and went off into the grass, rolling my right ankle (the one that has the old injury). Oh my gosh it hurt. I was only able not to scream/cry because my friends were watching. I gingerly put some weight on it but it was excruciating. So I had to bail on the race. Felt a little silly. But it was totally me.

The girls are so cute. Baby R is walking about 75% of the time and must be having a growth spurt because she is hungry...all ...the ...time. Today she literally ate every hour. I think that's the big reason she's been getting up in the middle of the night this week. I finally remembered that S went through a stage like that, too, where I had to feed her yogurt in the middle of the night. Frustrating, but if that's really all it is, I'm hoping we can just get her fed and back to sleep in 30 minutes - not spending 2 hours trying to figure out what's wrong.

Last night I met some friends for drinks to celebrate our birthdays. One of my friends and I have the exact same birthdate. Lots of people share the same birthday, but I don't know many people who know another person with their birthdate. I know three other people. And we were born on Friday, the 13th, which makes it even stranger. Anyway, we had a great time hanging out.

I'm taking tomorrow off work which will be somewhat less productive than I'd hoped since I am still struggling to walk. But I should be able to get a couple of things done, and enjoy a bday lunch with some friends. Looking forward to Tuesday when KLZ and I do our blog swap!

A Sinful Life

Vivobello tweeted that she lost a bunch of followers after writing this post about being harassed by strangers who thought she was a lesbian. I decided to take my comment on her blog and turn it into my own post because I really had more to say about it than was appropriate for that space.

I don’t often address this topic because for me, what it all comes down to is this: it’s really not my place to judge. Oh, I'm judgmental. I like to think that I'm not, but then I hear myself say or think things, and I know that I am. What I mean is that when The Day of Judgment arrives, I will not be the one who is doing the judging, so what difference does it make what I think? That said, here’s what I believe.

I believe that homosexuality is a sin. Yep, I said it. The 5 followers I have will now be un-following me (gasp!). Prepare yourself; there's more. I also believe gluttony is a sin. And sloth. (I’m a good 50 lbs overweight.) I believe taking the name of God in vain is a sin. (Oops.) I am not perfect. I commit LOTS of sins. I try not to and wish I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter what I do, I will always be a sinner. It’s only through the blood of Jesus that my sins are washed away. If someone walked up to me and said, "Oh my God, you're fat! You're going to hell, Lardass!", I would be quite shocked. I would be shaken and reply with witty repartee of some sort. Perhaps, "Oh yeah? So are you, you Taker-of-the-Lord's-Name-in-Vain-er, you!" (stick out tongue) Unlikely to happen right? So why do people think it's ok to say that kind of thing to people who are gay or lesbian? I have no idea. Fred Phelps, I'm talking to you.

Because I believe that it's a sin, I do believe it's something that is innate. I believe we are all born with the tendency to commit every sin - each of us just have ones that we find more tempting than others. Some people are just better at hiding their vices. Or are challenged with ones that are considered to be more acceptable for the mainstream. You know, like greed.

I know there are a lot of people who have experimented with same-sex acts. It's practically expected according to some college-experience movies. It's never been an area of interest for me, personally. Does that mean I don't think it's a real temptation? No. I just have my own demons to fight. Am I just better at winning the battles because I appear to be "normal"? No. I lose. A lot. And when I win? It's rarely due to me. It's all God-given strength.

My problem with standing up for gay rights isn’t that I don’t think everyone deserves equal rights, it’s that by bringing a sin into the equation, it skews the issue. If someone were to commit adultery, then want the world to be on their side because they believe humans aren't wired to be monogamous, people would... well, actually, some people probably would support that. I'm not saying homosexuals shouldn't receive the same legal rights with respect to property ownership and hospital visitation that heterosexual couples have. The right to be married, though... For me, marriage is a more complicated matter. I do believe marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman. Marriage is a religious AND civic act. So I also think that there should be some way for gay couples to achieve the social status/legal rights that go along with marriage. I don't have all the answers. I just know that I don't feel comfortable calling it "marriage" if it's not heterosexual. Doing so feels to me like it's condoning the sinful act. Although I suppose that's what we do when we say someone who is greedy is "acquisitive".

I am not homophobic. I have friends who are gay. I L-O-V-E the show "Modern Family" which depicts a gay couple. I find it hypocritical to think it’s ok to be a bigot when one is also a sinner (and we all are). My job is not to tell homosexuals they are going to hell for being gay. My job is to be the best Christian I can be by sharing God’s love and admit that I’m not perfect, and that I, too, need forgiveness for my sins.  I kind of suck at that job to be honest. But I want to be better at it.

The struggle is that part of asking for forgiveness is repentance. According to Webster, to repent is "to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life" or "to feel regret or contrition." I think that's a big reason why mainstreamers feel like they are less sinful than homosexuals. If a gay couple decides to get married, clearly there is no repentance involved. The mainstreamers can go to church and ask God to forgive them for skimming a little money from the till, and promise they won't do it again. Because no one else has to know. Then when they do it again, clearly NOT having turned from this sin, they'll ask for forgiveness again. There's no contrition. It's not really legitimate. But they convince themselves they've been forgiven because they asked. And again, no one else has to know. Kind of hard for no one else to know when you and your partner have to go public about your relationship since no one is buying that you're "just roommates". Some sins are easier to hide than others. But God knows your heart, and you can't hide anything from Him.

So the lesson for today, dear readers, isn't tolerance, it's acceptance. Accept that all of us are different. All of us are flawed. And none of us are worthy of heaven of our own accord. "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Focus on fixing your own flaws, not condemning others for theirs.

Has It Been A Week Already?

Sheesh! I don't even have any dramatic news to report. I should really be more thoughtful of my readers as I'm sure an extended absence leaves you wondering what horrifying event I've experienced as of late.

Thankfully, I can report - none. I've just been busy with work. (I know, can you believe I'm actually needing to do work at my job instead of type posts? To be fair, I write them on my lunch break or when I'm waiting for my computer to finish doing something, but still, work? Really?) And Tweeting too much. I was so afraid of Twitter, and Julia at Work, Wife, Mom...Life! got me over it, and now - it's as bad as my initial Facebook addiction. And I'm hoping it will slow to that level of obsession soon, because I'm really not getting anything productive done having Tweetdeck running all day. But it does make the time go by quickly!

Anyway, I have some exciting news. Though I've been blogging for a few years, I hadn't really entered the blogosphere per se until this fall when I started Kludgy Mom's Back 2 School/Back 2 Blogging and discovered that there are people on the other side of these posts. It's like the newspaper's editor but so much more personal and the contact is real and your letter isn't stuck in an inbox with 500 other letters that will get previewed and pitched before even making it to the actual editor's desk.

Point being, once I swallowed the red pill, I found a whole new world. And in this world, I've met and most recently bonded with KLZ from Taming Insanity. We share a love of "How I Met Your Mother" and "Austin Powers," and though we disagree on the importance of "War Games" in Matthew Broderick's filmography and whether or not eggnog is a good holiday tradition, we've helped each other out in contests and #FF. So when KLZ asked if I wanted to do a blog swap, I was honored. Stay tuned - I'll be having my first ever guest poster here at Midwest "Mom"ments in the next week.

Reminiscing

Today, Julia was kind enough to give us run of the roost to write about anything for WMW due to technical difficulties. (Poor thing - I hope your computer woes are resolved soon!) And my post yesterday got me to thinking about the great dates DH and I had when we were courting. (Yeah, I know it wasn't courting in the official sense of the word, but it sounds cool, and clearly I'm old, so this is an appropriate turn of phrase.) And I realized another place we went has gone the way of the dodo bird, so I thought I'd tell a few of our date stories.

First, what I consider to be our most romantic date. DH and I met through a mutual friend, and at the time, she and DH's friend were kind of interested in each other. So the boys planned a double date. First, we went to a neighborhood ice skating rink. This is where my sister and I took lessons as children. My sister even performed in a recital. It's where we went for birthday parties in winter. Many fond memories from there. And a few years ago, it closed down. But I digress....

At one point during our skate time, the boys went to get hot chocolate for us, and we girls continued around the rink, chatting, of course, about the boys. Then they came back and my friend went to sit down while I kept going. DH sidled up to me (as well as sidling can be done on ice skates), and said he saw a pretty girl out on the ice so he wanted to come say hello. Charming! Unfortunately, I don't do well with compliments. "Oh, really?" I replied. "Where is she?" Can you just hear the brakes screeching on the romanticism of the moment?

Not to be discouraged, when we left the ice rink, we stopped at the store on the way back to DH's parents' house. (Oh yeah, that's right. His parents' house. It was a LONG time ago.) When the boys came back to the car, DH presented me with a rose, and they'd rented "The Cutting Edge". Yes, a THEMED date night, people. Do I have a sweet hubby or what? (For those of you scrambling to get to IMDB for a synopsis, "The Cutting Edge" is about a hockey player who gets injured so becomes a figure skating partner to a spoiled girl, and of course, their fiery personalities are all wrong for each other, until they realize they are really just right. Hmm, sounds familiar...sigh...)