2013 Goal Review: Why Do I Bother?

In a strange fit of optimism and productivity at the end of last year (perhaps I was drugged?), I made a list of ten things I wanted to accomplish in 2013. They weren’t resolutions, per se, as I am perfect and wonderful and need not resolve to be anything more, but they were worthy goals nonetheless. None were too lofty and I was certain I’d have no trouble checking each one off the ol’ to-do list by, oh, June or so. Easy peasy!

Let’s see how I really did:

10) Make the poor kid a baby book.

RESULT: FAIL (technically)

Technically, I did not do this. BUT! I do make an annual family scrapbook documenting all of the year’s highlights and activities, and of course this blog itself is a lovely record of his childhood (and my insanity) — isn’t that enough? If Bubba complains about the lack of a real baby book someday, I’ll just remind him about all the less fortunate children whose mothers opted not to publicly expose their life stories for all the world to mock¹. That’ll shut him up.

9) Come up with other things to feed him besides mac and cheese, ham and bread, spaghetti, and chicken nuggets.

RESULT: PASS (technically…I never said anything about vegetables)

He eats hot dogs now! And quesadillas, occasionally. So…best mom ever?

8) Take Bubba on a beach outing.

RESULT: PASS (for real!)

We actually did this! I’m not sure how much credit I really deserve, considering we live literally 10 miles from the ocean and it took approximately no planning or effort whatsoever, but no matter. He thoroughly enjoyed:

7) Enlist an actual barber to cut Bubba’s hair.

RESULT: PASS!

Another victory! We are regulars at Supercuts now, and he has even progressed from screaming in fear to reluctant acceptance:

6) Figure out my childcare/daycare situation.

RESULT: PASS!

I’m on a roll, kids! Bubba started attending my neighbor’s daycare in February, and it has been FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC. In fact, I feel like a complete idiot for having fought it for so long, so let’s all just pretend I totally didn’t nearly suffer an emotional collapse over it last year and move along.

5) Brush his teeth…every day.

RESULT: PASS (with assistance)

I accomplished this goal by assigning it to Daddy. Woohoo! Let him get bit by a toddler vampire every night.

4) Do all the fun Halloween stuff (pumpkin patch and subsequent carving of said pumpkins, costume, etc).

RESULT: COMPLETE FAIL

Goddammit, I was doing so well. I tried, though, remember? It was Bubba who decided Halloween was for suckers, not me.

3) Participate in a “mommy and me” class of some sort.

RESULT: HA! I hate other people³.

2) Get some professional photos taken.

RESULT: PASS…?

We did indeed pay someone with a camera to take pictures of us! Whether the results of that harrowing experience qualify as “professional photos” is up for debate, but that’s hardly my fault.

1) Make Bubba his very own quilty.

RESULT: NOT EVEN CLOSE

Isn’t it cute that I thought I’d have time for sewing projects? Bubba’s lucky he has clean sheets most nights — if he wants a custom hand-made blanket, he’s going to have to take something off my plate to free up some time. Can two-year-olds be trusted to make dinner?

 

A few missed goals aside, 2013 was a great year for me. At the risk of sounding like a serious person (god forbid!) for a moment, I’d like to acknowledge that I am so enormously happy and content with my wonderful life, and it keeps getting better — sometimes I just stop and marvel at my seemingly endless capacity for happiness. It’s hard to imagine that 2014 could prove to be an even better year, but based on the upward trend of my last few years, I can only assume it will indeed be a banner year!

Especially since I’m not wasting my time with any goals or resolutions this year. ANARCHY!

…………………………………

Footnotes:

¹And by “all the world” I mean “my seven loyal fans².”

²And by “fans” I mean “people who accidentally clicked on my link thinking it was something else.”

³Except for you! You’re special! Don’t leave.

Christmas 2013: The Year of 2-Hour Glazed Carrots, a Football Meltdown, and an Awesome Video

Technically, this year was Bubba’s third Christmas, but considering that he was three weeks old for his first and was more excited about wrapping paper than presents last year, I feel like yesterday was his first real Christmas. It really felt like Christmas this time around, with Bubba singing carols and gorging on red and green M&Ms and trying to claim everyone’s presents as his own. There’s nothing better than enjoying the magic of Christmas with an enchanted child!

Of course, I’m more exhausted today than I’ve been in months and am praising god that this nonsense only happens once a year.

Here are the high (and low) lights:

• On both the 23rd and 24th, Bubba woke up no fewer than 950 times throughout the night. This isn’t really related to Christmas other than the fact that each time he woke up he insisted that I sing either Jingle Bells or Mele Kalikimaka (or both), and if I never hear either of those songs again it will be too soon.
• On Christmas Eve, my sister let Bubba open a present. It was Spiderman pajamas:

• Those jammies did not leave his body until 3pm on Christmas Day when I forced him to change into real-life human clothes. Tears were shed.

• I made my husband the best gift EVER (if I do say so myself, and I do). Please take three minutes out of your day to enjoy this masterpiece of adorableness:

• Despite several pre-Christmas conversations on the subject, Bubba remained reluctant to accept that each and every present beneath the tree was not, in fact, for him. We had some variation of this conversation approximately every twelve minutes:

Bubba, hopefully: More presents?

Mama: No, Bud. This one is for Grandma. You already got lots of presents, remember?

Bubba: …Mine?

• I think I would pay double for toys if they just came pre-assembled. Poor TFW spent his whole day doing this:

• I volunteered to make a side dish for Christmas dinner, and my mom helpfully selected a recipe for me, which I didn’t bother looking at until it was time for me to start cooking. Were you aware that it’s possible to spend two hours making glazed carrots? Well, it is.
• Since I spent the entire afternoon sweating over fifty pounds of carrots on the stove, I was only able to capture a grand total of about three photos of my son enjoying his Christmas. Here’s one of him refusing to share a wiffle ball with his poor cousin:

• Lest you think my family is negligent for allowing our children to prance around in short sleeves and no shoes in December, please note that it was 82 degrees here in LA yesterday.
• Despite the weather, I wore tights and a scarf because I got them from my family secret santa and was determined to wear something new. I looked fantastic, and you’ll just have to take my word for it because I was too busy making glazed carrots to pose for photos.
• At about 6pm, Bubba officially entered Christmas Overload Meltdown Mode and completely lost his shit when I told him he had to put his cousin’s Nerf football away so we could eat dinner. When I finally convinced him to sit down and eat, I didn’t even care that all he wanted for dinner was a green apple and a pile of barbeque potato chips.
• No, he didn’t eat any carrots.
• He was so tired by the end of the night, I only had to sing Mele Kalikimaka six or seven times and then he slept for ten straight hours. CHRISTMAS VICTORY!

I hope you all had a delightful holiday and didn’t shed any tears over Spiderman pajamas nor footballs. Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas Confession: I Hate Santa (#sorrynotsorry)

Growing up, my family didn’t really “do” Santa. Perhaps my mom wasn’t a big fan of his, or maybe with six kids she was just too busy trying to keep us all fed, clothed, and out of trouble to concern herself with perpetuating tall tales about a pack of flying woodland creatures chauffeuring a hirsute, morbidly obese creeper around for the express purpose of breaking and entering into peoples’ homes. This is not to say that my family was without Christmas spirit, of course! Each December, the house was decked out in Christmas finery, my mom baked fifty dozen cookies, and there were always presents galore — there just wasn’t any nonsense about said presents originating from the North Pole.

Lest you think my childhood was lacking due to the lack of Santa, allow me to assure you that I most certainly never felt like I was missing out by not believing. In fact, to be quite honest, I found the whole idea baffling and didn’t understand how anyone could believe. Perhaps I was just an unimaginative child, but Santa and his entire M.O. seemed so far out of the realm of real-world possibility that I actually found the charade a wee bit annoying. Really, this dude’s gotta be the highlight of a parade? And if he shows up at a holiday party, I have to pretend I’m not totally grossed out and sit on his lap?! Please.

As a parent, I’m even more put off by the concept. Why, pray tell, should Santa get credit for all the presents I’m buying and wrapping for my child?! That’s just plain unfair. And you can forget about waiting in line for a photo opp at the mall — I take a hardline stance against any child of mine cuddling up to strangers and whispering in their ears, and the presence of a Santa suit does not sweeten the deal. My biggest gripe, though, is Santa’s cruelty. Assuming he’s real for a moment, can we discuss why the hell he only gives good stuff to rich people while the less-wealthy folks get shit? As my little sister famously asked my mom when she was about four, if Santa’s out there delivering toys and whatnot, why doesn’t he just bring poor people some money and solve their problems? ANSWER THAT, SANTA!

It’s too much. I can’t do it!

Bubba’s not missing out on Christmas fun, though, I promise. As evidence, please enjoy this photo of him eating a snack with his two new best friends, some snowman ornaments he stole from the Christmas tree and has been hoarding ever since:

Merry Christmas!

PS: I love the Tooth Fairy and can’t wait for her to visit Bubba in a few years. #hypocrite

Toddler Wedding Adventures, Take 2. Difficulty Level: Pneumonia

You may remember when my little sister got married a few months ago, we took Bubba along for the fun (perhaps against our best judgement). As you can imagine, taking a toddler to a wedding — an out of town wedding, no less — was not easy, but we didn’t ruin the party and no one had any nervous breakdowns or anything, so I was thrilled to put the whole experience into the “win” category. With this past success in mind, when it came time to make plans to attend my other little sister‘s nuptials, which took place last weekend, we didn’t even consider leaving Bubba behind. Why would we, right? If anything, I reasoned, he’d be even easier this time around, considering he’s a little older and likes M&Ms even more (and is thus more easily bribed into behaving, at least in precious thirty second intervals).

So the hotel was booked and time off work was arranged. I packed Bubba’s little suit and made a list of all the toys and snacks to bring along (vital: Hot Wheels and M&Ms), and discussed various contingency plans with TFW just in case the dear lad refused to behave during the ceremony. I had learned a lot from the previous wedding and had no doubt that all my bases were covered this time around. I had every step of our journey planned out and was ready for another successful family wedding adventure!

And then on Thursday afternoon, just 24 hours before we were due to leave for Santa Barbara, Bubba developed pneumonia. We spent hours in Urgent Care until a delightful combination of antibiotics and steroids (and Motrin, which he promptly puked up all over himself, me, and his precious teddy bear¹) got both his breathing and his fever (104°!) under control. The poor boy was quite a sight:

Now, obviously, pneumonia is a serious condition and not something to be taken lightly, but I have to admit that my primary concern (after confirming that my child would be just fine, of course) was whether we could still bring him to the damn wedding that weekend! It was my sister’s wedding, after all — it’s not like I could just skip it. Leaving my sick baby behind didn’t sound like a suitable solution, either, because there was no way in hell I was going to trust anyone else to give him his medicine and inhaler². Luckily, the doctor said that since he was on antibiotics and steroids, it was perfectly fine to bring him along — he wasn’t contagious, and while he obviously wasn’t going to be feeling his best, that wasn’t going to change whether he was at home or in a hotel. WHEW! What a relief! The wedding weekend was saved!

Or…not.

Did you know that sick children don’t particularly like sleeping in strange hotel rooms? Or being forced to wear suits instead of comfy nylon pants?

Also, did you know that an outdoor wedding in December can be very, very cold, even in southern California? Like, 39°? And that even adding a sweater on top of a suit is really not sufficient coverage for A TODDLER WITH PNEUMONIA?

Yeah, that poor kid lasted about thirty seconds before I told TFW he had better take him home. It was just too cold and he was just too cranky (how dare I try to force him to wear a beanie! And aren’t I the meanest mom ever for not letting him venture outside the somewhat-heated reception tent?!) — I could tell straightaway that there was no hope of so much as five minutes of wedding-appropriate behavior, no matter how many M&Ms I shoveled down his gullet. All that planning and driving, and my husband and child never even laid eyes on the bride (who was, of course, stunning):

On the bright side, the departure of my ever-patient and accommodating husband and my sickly child meant that I was an unfettered woman all evening, free to enjoy champagne and to dance (poorly) to such gems as Summer Lovin’ and Gangnam Style, so it wasn’t a total bust.

…………………………………

Footnotes:

¹Of course when he vomited, I had no extra clothes for him or myself, because that would have just been way too easy. I sent TFW home to fetch us more clothes and considered sending Gokey home with him so the washing process could begin, but ultimately I decided to keep the bear with us at the clinic despite the fact that he was absolutely drenched in foul-smelling pink puke (Bubba had apparently eaten nothing but peaches for lunch at school); I figured allowing my son to at least see his filthy bear would be preferable to dealing with repeated sobs pleading, “where Gokey?!?!?!” I was right, and it also resulted in several classic lines from Bubba, including “ew…he stinky” and an emphatic “I no touch him.”

²Not even Daddy. Sorry.

Birthday Party Recap: Pukefests, Cleaning Frenzies, and the Best Cake Ever

For Bubba’s first birthday, I didn’t bother throwing a party. It’s not like he had any friends to celebrate with (he didn’t start daycare until a couple months later), and since he obviously wasn’t going to know the difference, I figured I’d just save myself the hassle. This year I decided to act like a Good Mother and held a full-on party complete with a bounce house and actual guests who were not related to me, and I’m eternally thankful for the prescience (AKA laziness) that allowed me to skip out on last year’s party. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but planning and hosting a birthday party — even a casual one for a toddler — is HARD WORK! All throughout the process I just kept thinking, “people do this every year? HOW, AND WHY!?” By the end of the day, I was ready for a bottle of wine and a weeklong vacation, and vowed to wait at least five years before giving another party.

When I started planning the party (nearly a MONTH in advance, by the way; I fully thought I was the best mom ever for starting so early, then quickly learned that I had apparently started too late), I naively assumed it’d be fairly simple. We’d arrange for a bounce house or something, order some pizzas, invite my family and the daycare kids, and there ya go: party!

False.

First of all, it took me no fewer than 15 calls and 25 emails to find a freakin’ bounce house rental place. Actually, that’s not accurate. I had no problem finding websites and Craigslist listings advertising the rental of said bounce houses, but apparently this is an industry run exclusively by people who don’t speak English and 13-year-olds who learned web design in 1996, because just trying to get pricing and availability information from these companies was like pulling teeth. I nearly wept with joy when I finally received a reply to one of my countless emails and immediately made a reservation, then spent the next four weeks praying they would show up (spoiler: they did!).

With the entertainment vaguely secured, I put together my guest list and started working on invitations. This part was actually fairly easy, because I stole the template from one friend and then forced another friend to edit it to my specifications. It came out beautifully, if I do say so myself:

Once the invitations were out, I started a “party prep to-do list.” This is the point at which I realized that I was in over my head. A party needs decorations! And you’ve gotta have goody bags! What about food?! And wait, will a bounce house be enough entertainment? Do I need a clown or something? (Don’t worry, I didn’t get a clown.) I better arrange for the dog to go to doggie daycare, because she’s kind of a feral beast and might mistake a smile child for a squirrel and try to eat it alive. Oh yeah, I have to make a cake! And it has to be the best cake ever, because I’ve made some pretty sweet cakes (no pun intended) for other people and this is for my son, so it must surpass all others. AND OH MY GOD ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE GONNA BE IN MY HOUSE AND I’VE GOTTA CLEAN THE WHOLE DAMN THING FROM TOP TO BOTTOM!

I did as much as I could in the weeks before the party, but obviously most tasks had to be saved for the days immediately preceding the big event (I ain’t mopping if guests aren’t a-knockin’). So I created a master schedule for the three days before the party and filled every waking minute with cleaning, baking, and setup tasks. My schedule was packed, but I was confident that I could get everything done. I was ready to be the Party Queen!

And then on Thanksgiving night, when my schedule said I was supposed to be tinting fondant and making buttercream icing for the cake, I got hit with The Plague (I can only assume). Puking commenced suddenly and violently. So much puke. I was laid up for 24 hours as the party loomed ever nearer, unable to cross a single item off my to-do list.

Panic ensued. Who’s going to clean my house? (Certainly not my husband, who once looked at a stove literally covered in spilled food and told me, with a straight face and Kenneth Parcell-level sincerity, that he didn’t see anything wrong.) What about my cake?! And those Party City paper dump truck centerpieces aren’t going to fold themselves!

Thankfully, I rallied the next day and cleaned for about 12 straight hours, then got to work on the cake. I decided that aesthetics were more important than quality or taste and used Betty Crocker mixes instead of baking from scratch so I could focus my energies on the decorating instead, something I haven’t done before but will likely always do in the future (no one cares about the taste when they’re looking at a masterpiece of cake design, right??). By Sunday morning, the cake was complete, the house was the cleanest it’s been since Bubba’s birth (sadly not an exaggeration), the goody bags were full of leftover Halloween candy (true story) and fine treasures from Target’s dollar section, and my yard was decked out with construction-themed nonsense. The sketchy bounce house shockingly arrived on time (and stayed upright the entire party, even more shockingly), my parents kindly picked up the food on their way over, and then the guests arrived!

PARTY TIME!

Bounce house arrived at 8:45am. This photo was taken at approximately 8:45 and 15 seconds. He was…excited.

I wasn’t kidding about the paper dump truck centerpieces.

I made my poor sister be a face painter. I think she should quit her day job, as this is clearly her true talent in life!

I’m no party-planner or professional decorator, but I think a wagon full of beverages is just more construction-y than a cooler.

These three ate ice out of the wagon for TWENTY MINUTES. Um…bounce house? Face paint?

Just bragging that I have friends (real cool ones, too!).

THE CAKE. 

My finest work yet. Set the bar too high for future birthdays, unfortunately.

Success.

I’m exhausted. And now I see why people hold parties at Chuck E. Cheese!

Merry Un-Halloween!

I am not a big fan of Halloween. I just don’t see the point: I’m perfectly capable of looking like an idiot in my everyday clothes; there’s no need to get expensive and/or uncomfortable costumes involved. As far as candy is concerned, when I have a craving, I just write passive-aggressive blog posts hinting that my husband should bring me said candy — I hardly see how traipsing about my neighborhood banging on strangers’ doors and demanding treats is in any way the easiest candy-procuring option. I haven’t celebrated Halloween since seventh grade, when I dressed as a laundry basket:

In the years since that brilliant display of creativity and half-assery (my sister is actually the one who deserves credit; she came up with this truly inspired solution when I decided at the last minute that I wanted to trick-or-treat with some friends), the only consideration I’ve given Halloween at all is which candy I should purchase for the trick-or-treaters that will provide me with the most delicious leftovers.

My attitude did not change even after having a child. Despite the fact that babies admittedly look ADORABLE in Halloween costumes, I’m sorry to say that I simply could not be bothered to do anything for Bubba’s first Halloween. He was a baby, for goodness sake — it’s not like he had any brilliant costume ideas to contribute, much less a desire for candy. I threw a pumpkin shirt on him and called it a day:

(Full disclosure: I didn’t even waste time or money getting him his own shirt; that was a hand-me-down from my sister’s kids. It’s a girls’ shirt.)

Now, this year, I really did intend to get into the spirit. I know that Halloween is fun for kids and I was ready and willing to do my part. We got some pumpkins at Trader Joe’s to add some fall ambiance to the house. I asked Bubba’s daycare provider if the kids would be wearing their costumes to school on Halloween (yes) and tracked down a costume. We went to a “Harvest Festival” and enjoyed various fall-related activities:

He even went to a pumpkin patch with his daycare and picked out his very own pumpkin:

He seemed to be enjoying everything, and I assumed we were “on” for Halloween this year. I even started looking forward to it a teensy bit, envisioning Bubba in his cute little firefighter costume, marching around the neighborhood and getting more and more excited with each treat added to his bag.

And then I tried to get him to put on the costume, and everything fell apart:

Mama: “Bud, come check out your fireman costume for Halloween!”

Bubba, cheerfully: “Nope!”

Mama: “Huh? Come check it out! Look at the hat!”

Bubba: “I jumping!”

Mama: “What? No, stop jumping off the couch for a sec. Look at this cool hat!”

Bubba: “Hat!”

Mama: “Yes, it’s a fireman’s hat! Try it on!”

Bubba: “Nope!”

Mama: “It’s for Halloween! Remember, everyone wears costumes and looks funny and we do trick-or-treating?”

Bubba: “How-ween cot-tumes!”

Mama: “YES, exactly! This is your costume!”

Bubba: “Yours!”

Mama: “What? No. This is YOUR costume, not mine.”

Bubba: “Mine cot-tume! Yours!”

Mama: “Yes! I mean, no about the ‘yours’ part; it’s not mine. Goddammit, pronouns are hard to explain. This is Ryan’s costume, I mean.”

Bubba: “Nope!”

HE WOULD NOT SO MUCH AS TOUCH THE FREAKIN’ COSTUME. I tried again the next day, and once again the day after that, all to no avail. He went off to daycare this morning in his regular clothes, and I am not holding out much hope that he’ll end his Halloween Strike this evening in time for trick-or-treating. I suppose he gave it some consideration and concluded that putting on a costume and begging for treats is simply not as fun as staying home and perfecting his dive-bombs off the sofa.

I can’t say I blame him.

Happy Halloween!

This is What Happens When You Don’t Care About Your Birthday

I am not one of those people who makes a big deal about her birthday. I’m not begrudging you birthday-loving fools and your monthlong birthday countdowns and blowout celebrations (as long as you invite me), but I just never have it in me to care about my own. Sure, I looked forward to and enjoyed my birthday as a child — I’m not a psychopath — but since celebrating my birthday as an adult requires me to do all the things I hate most in life, i.e. spending money, leaving the house, and asking other people to do things for me, it is no surprise that I prefer to lay low on August 30th each year.

The problem with not caring about your birthday is that it can lead to some very pathetic birthdays.

Take, for example, my sixteenth birthday. My firstborn nephew was born the day before I turned 15, meaning his first birthday, obviously, fell on the day before my 16th. Because I didn’t really care, my “sweet sixteen” party became a “HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY TO CHUCKIE!!! oh and it’s mo’s birthday or something too” party, and thus this is literally the only photo of me from that event:

I’m the one holding the birthday boy¹. And yes, we are sitting on a motorcycle that, incidentally, was driven to the party by my octogenarian great-uncle. This shindig was a rager!

This example of birthday half-assery was not an isolated incident. Just last year, about a week before my birthday, my mom kindly offered to host a little family barbeque in my honor. The day before said barbeque, my mom called me and we had the following conversation²:

Mom: “So, are you guys coming to Chuck’s party tomorrow? What time are you arriving?”

Mo: “Wait, what?”

Mom: “Chuck’s birthday party! It’s at 2pm.”

Mo: “Do you mean the party you offered to have for me last week?”

Mom: “Huh? [genuine confusion!] Oh! That’s right. Yes, are you coming to ‘your’ party?”

After so many half-assed and last-minute birthday celebrations, I decided that my birthday this year should be different. It was my thirtieth, so I felt compelled to celebrate the milestone. TFW and I made plans to go to Las Vegas, even convincing my mom to come along with us so she could help watch the baby in the hotel while we went out and lost money betting on the Yankees. (And no, leaving my precious lad behind and going to Vegas alone with my husband was not an option for me, because I am, first and foremost, insane.) It sounded like a fabulous way to ring in my thirties, and I was quite excited about this plan…until we took Bubba to my sister’s wedding last month and realized that taking care of a toddler in a hotel kind of sucks.

And then I started thinking about how much money we’d spend in Las Vegas.

And how hot it would be there.

And how long the drive would be.

And how I really don’t care about my birthday anyway.

Can you see where this is going?

All of the above concerns led to me eschewing Vegas in favor of spending my 30th birthday right here at home doing absolutely nothing. We went on a thrilling adventure to the mall in the afternoon because it was too hot to sit around our hellhole of a house, then ate dinner on the couch³ and rounded out the celebration by watching Wedding Crashers because I’ve been meaning to get hip to all those oft-quoted one-liners for oh, 7 or 8 years now. I was in bed by 10pm.

So be forewarned, fellow birthday-dismissers: it’s a slippery slope! One minute you’re sharing your sixteenth birthday party with a toddler, and the next thing you know you’re spending your thirtieth birthday trying to figure out what aspects of Luke Wilson’s clearly mentally disturbed character in an eight-year-old rom-com were supposed to be at all redeemable, and you don’t even care because you’re old and cheap and lazy and celebrating your birthday is just way too much work.

……………………………………

Footnotes:

¹That’s my BFF/cousin, Cara, next to me on the chopper. I found a myriad of photos of the two of us while looking for this gem, and I was both amused and horrified to discover that in virtually every photo of us from this era, at least one of us is rocking a tube top; the photos also proved that the next year, our mutual trend of choice turned to thick black eyeliner.

²This is verbatim! It was truly a classic “Mom” moment.

³Lest you start feeling too bad for me and my pathetic birthday, allow me to assure you that my husband made jambalaya for dinner and it was spectacular.

---

Thanks to Mama Kat‘s writer’s workshop prompt (“You know you’re getting old because…”) for the inspiration!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesay: Mother’s Day!

Mother’s Day 2012 was my first as a Certified Mama. Bubba was five months old, so one might think that at that point I would have had plenty of time to adjust to the crazy parenting life and not be so frazzled, but you’d be wrong.

I was too exhausted to give much thought to taking quality photos, for one thing. We tried for one family photo and then I was over it, despite the blurry result:

I also made a rookie mistake that day, neglecting to pack enough costume changes for our afternoon at my mom’s house. Bubba spent most of the day naked:

And I think I spent a total of 16 seconds on my own appearance, which certainly seemed to alarm poor Bubba:

This year, I’ve got my shit together! I put on makeup like a normal person and dressed the baby in his most dapper duds:

Of course, that darling hat only stayed on his head for a grand total of less than 2 seconds (I’m amazed TFW was even able to snap a single photo as evidence of the fleeting cuteness), but he still looked adorable in his remaining finery:

Like last year, though, he wound up naked by the end of the day:

It’s good to see not too much has changed.

Happy Mother’s Day!