My diaper bag

I’m kind of a short person. I used to call myself a small person, but these extra 20 pounds are killing me.

So the thought of caring around tons of crap was not appealing at all.

Thankfully, my friend bought me the perfect diaper bag and I had to share.

Here’s A picture of it next to my husband shoe, he has pretty small feat, 8.5.

Its a 31 bag.  (or is that company called 21?)

I have no idea what the style is, but I just love it.

Although it kind of sucks that I can’t just throw in the wash machine.  At least, the tag says to not do that.  

Also, it doesn’t have a zipper or any type of enclosure, but I’m cool with that.

It’s compact, and it holds everything I need. Perfection.

Potty training

Quite frankly, potty training terrifies me.  It sounds like a huge pain in the butt, it sounds like I’ll need a ton of patients, and I’m also assuming I’ll need to clean up pee all over the place.

I’ve been pumping up how awesome it is to use the toilet for the past year now. We’ll see if it works out.

I bought this little plastic toilet at IKEA about a year ago. I think it was only eight dollars.

Unfortunately, she pulled it out of the closet all the time and just sits on it to watch her YouTube videos. So now she probably doesn’t even realize it’s a toilet.

Every time I find little undies 75% off any store I’ve been purchasing them.  I have no idea what size she wears and undies, but these are all size 2.  Most are a little boy undies.

Every time I go to the bathroom, she followed me in there, and I tell her what’s going on.

I’ve also been telling her that she can’t use the toilet until she’s tw i’ve also been telling her that she can’t use the toilet until she’s 2. 

My mom claims that she did that with me, and on my second birthday I just use the toilet and never looked back.

So, that’s my plan. Hyping up the toilet till there’s no tomorrow.  Wish me luck into months when she actually turns 2.

Shutterfly

I made 4 Shutterfly photo albums of Bubba’s first year.  A 0 to 3 months album, 3 to 6 months album etc …

I wanted to make more, but I’m really lazy, and these photo books to be kind of expensive.

But now I really wish I made more, because Bubba loves looking at them.

She always takes my hand, pulls me into my bedroom, points at the bookshelf, and says “baby!”  (meaning “I want to look at the baby books”)

How can you say no to that?

DIY color toy

I can’t take any credit for this DIY project. This was all my crafty mom.

But it seems easy enough:

It’s just a bunch of eggs in a carton!  And, for some reason, 2 random orange golf balls.

I’m guessing she bought these wooden eggs at a craft store, like Michael’s or Joann.

Then, she just painted the eggs, and the inside of the paper egg carton.

Once in a while, I’ll take the eggs out of the carton and just leave them in a pile right by the empty egg carton.  Bubba always puts them away perfectly!

Those wooden eggs are pretty heavy though.  Now that Bubba can throw things more than 2 inches in front of her, I have to keep them away from the TV and other breakable things. She doesn’t throw things very often, but you know kids, they be crazy.

Proud Mom Moment!*

*sarcasm

I’ve been on Facebook now for about 10 years, and since I’m 40 most of my friends from high school have had kids for quite a while now.

People are constantly posting “proud mom moment” and I was secretly mocking them.

But now that Bubba is actually doing cool stuff, I totally get it. My bad.

I mean, my kid can drink out of a cup!  She knows how to use the trashcan!  Look at her swimming!

I must be raising the smartest kid ever*.

* more sarcasm

Super Simple Learning

I wanted to be one of those parents that never turned on the TV in front of their kid.

But let’s face it, I want to watch TV. So my kids favorite TV shows just happened to be Hawaii 5–0 and Monday night RAW (WWE wrestling).

And, terrible parent that I am, I found some pretty sweet YouTube videos that I do let her watch.

The YouTube channel is called super simple learning.

It’s just a bunch of counting and ABC songs and twinkle twinkle little star. And their premise is they’ve made the song is as easy as possible.

For example, instead of “if you’re happy as you know it clap your hands…” they say “if you’re happy happy happy clap your hands…”

Anyways, I cannot recommend this channel enough. She loves the videos, they’re all really easy to watch, and the cute animation and puppetry is adorable.

I also have a crush on the one potatoes, two potatoes, three potatoes four little dudes.

My kid has 8 toys

OK, OK . . . Clearly my kid has more than eight toys.  But she doesn’t know that!

One of my main goals as a parent was not to have my house over run with crap.  Except our dining room which is quite frankly, overrun with crap, the rest of the house is pretty good.

We have a front room and a back room. The front room is mostly kids stuff in the back room is the TV and all that other normal adult boring junk.

Here’s my tip to keeping my house not a toy hellhole:

Once a week I put out eight toys.

That’s it kid, play with these eight things.

And you know what, she does.

Every week I go into those square bins up in that cube thing, and get out eight more toys.

None of it’s new, it’s all toys that she seen and played with before. But you think it was Christmas or something!  She’s pretty quiet and well behaved and mesmerized by the “new stuff”.  Hey, any time she’s playing quietly by herself is ‘me’ time!

So there you go Internet. That’s my mom hack of the day.  More like mom hack of the year, because I really don’t know what I’m doing still.

Thanks Old Navy!

This might sound dumb, but Old Navy having an actual stroller available in the store makes me 100 times more likely to shop there!

Granted, I’m not buying myself any clothes … but they did just send me a $5 coupon.  And it’s tax free weekend.  Damn you Old Navy!!!

Hashtag: lame things about having a baby!

#Iknowhowhashtagswork

DIY – baby toy (using scraps!)

A friend is having a baby soon, and she had 2 baby showers (I was invited to both). So, for the 2nd baby shower, I whipped up this cute little baby toy using stuff I already had laying around the house.

Admit it – you have a ribbon stash too!

Step 1: Cut out 2 squares (no clue what size – maybe 5″ by 5″) and a bunch of 2″-ish ribbon strips.

Step 2: Since I know the baby’s name, I cut out a Z and sewed it on. Not sure if using that zig zag stitch was the best idea.

Step 3: Pin the ribbons as little loops facing DOWN on the inside of the fabric. We’re going to make a fabric sandwich, then turn it right side out.

Step 4: Sew all the way around, but don’t forget to leave a small opening to turn it right side out!

Step 5: Stuff it with fiberfill, add more ribbons to the small opening (if you want to), then sew that closed.

I got lazy because I didn’t want to hand stitch, and just sewed all the way around the outside again with a top stitch.

Ta-da!

I’ve got a case of the Mondays!

Let me whine and complain for a moment.

Mondays are terrible!

Not for the normal reason that you probably think it’s terrible.  I actually have Tuesday & Wednesday off, so Monday is actually my Friday (if you followed that …)

But I don’t work from home on Mondays … YET!  Hopefully in a month or so I’ll be given the freedom to work from home full time.

Alas, for now I have to drive my butt into work on Mondays.

But it’s not that simple.  I also have to get dressed.  I have to take a shower.  I have to look presentable.  And I have to do all this while Bubba is NOT napping (she’s not the world’s greatest napper).

Thankfully, she’s pretty patient.  She’ll sit in her stroller as I take a shower (we go for a walk, and I just wheel her into the bathroom and she sits there), and she sits in her Bumbo chair on the counter while I brush my teeth and put on makeup.

But it’s still stressful keeping an eye on her.

Plus, I have to get started a full hour and a half before I start work!  That’s so much time that I don’t have to spend when I work from home!

How do working mother’s do it?!?  I’m such a wimp.