Grumblegrumblegrumble

Ouchies

Well, last night was good times. Good times indeed. Normally my daughter is an amazing sleeper, but lately she's been teething, so it's really throwing her off mood-wise. For the most part, she's still her pleasant old self, but at the drop of a hat (whatever the hell that even means) she starts screaming her head off like she's in tremendous pain. (Which, I suppose she is, because teeth growing underneath of your gum line and stretching it while trying to poke through can't possibly feel good). One of the unfortunate side affects for teething in some cases is spitting up more than usual. Chase has been particularly fussy about eating this past week, and when she does take a bottle, she just gnaws on the nipple. (Good thing I stopped breastfeeding, eh?) Last night she fell asleep around 10:30pm and woke up to eat at 1:15am. I had fallen asleep at 11, so I was pretty effin' tired. She drank a few ounces, then wouldn't fall back to sleep in her bassinet, so I put her in bed with me. She sleeps best on her belly, which you're not really supposed to let them do at this age because of the SIDS risk, but I think it's fine so long as there's nothing around that can obstruct her breathing, and I tend to lie perfectly still when she's in bed with me, so I never roll on her. Anyway, I laid one of her blankets out next to me in bed and put her on her belly with a bink in her mouth. She slept great until 6am when she woke up screaming. She spit up on the blanket, and herself, so I got her up and changed her diaper and cleaned her off. No sooner had I wiped off her mouth and neck, she spit up again. I cleaned that up. Then we went back to lay down...she spit up again, only more this time. I rolled her onto her back...*barf*, I gave her a bink, *gag/barf*, I cleaned her up again, changed the blanket and laid her back down. She was fine for like, 20 minutes, so I figured her Linda Blair impression was over,

I'm nauseous, I'm nauseous.

but I spoke too soon...*barfbarfbarf...and also, barf* on the clean blanket I had just put down. UGH! I pulled the blanket up, and here, the lovely spit up fest of 2011 had soaked through her blanket onto the sheet on my bed. Ew. It was a big, wet, round splotch. It was 7am at this point, so I put Chase in her bassinet and just let her hang out in there till she spit up again, then fell back to sleep. Christ! It was a full hour and a half of that, and as soon as she fell back to sleep at 7:30, so did I. Of course she only let me sleep for an hour, because she got up for good at 8:30 this morning. I even had a dream that I was in high school again...what a nightmare that was. I got up, tired as all get out, and stripped my bed, and threw all the puke blankets in the wash. And so begins my day. Laundry, dishes, mopping the floor despite the fact that's it pointless because my army of small dogs constantly leave their muddy paw prints all over the place. I also need to straighten up this place because my sister is spending the night and my friends are coming over tomorrow for the entire day.
So much for taking it easy on a Friday.

In other news, have you seen this lovely product that they're advertising on tv?

Yeah, because I totes wanna smell like a porn star. You might as well just take me down to South Street and let me rub against a prostitute. I'm sure this fragrance smells just delightful, and I bet every 16 year old girl will be out spending their babysitting money on this because Playboy bunnies are totally rad. I want my Playboy Bunny lunchbox!
Ok, well it's been real, but Chase just sneezed and spit up flew out of her mouth along with some snot on my arm. Kid's like a friggin' Garbage Pail Kid.

Peace, Love, and Spit Up Rags.

I'm tired of your shenanigans, Dora!

Yeah, yeah...I said I'd update weekly, but what I really meant was whenever I feel like it. It's my blog, I do what I want...whateva, whateva, I do what I want!

Ahem. Sorry. SO! Anyone else sick of this snow over here in Delco? I sure am. It's preventing me from doing my usual housewife duties. (haha...doody). I'm stuck in the house,but I have to run errands. My baby is out of her formula, so for now I'm going to have to give her the back up stuff, which was a little rough on her belly when she was a few weeks old and adjusting to formula, but I'm hoping she'll take to it better now that she's a little bit older. Oh well, at least I can get some much needed laundry done today. Chase has barfed on just about everything she owns, so her hamper is filled to capacity. And I still didn't get my car fixed because Old Man Winter is being a douche and keeps pouring out snow. Can't we just put him in a home or something? Jeez.

In other news: So I fell asleep with the tv on, and when I awoke, it was to Dora the Explorer. My little sister (who is now 11) used to love Dora when she was a toddler. This show really grinds my gears. Whatever, it's a preschool show and is supposed to be cute and teach my baby how to be Mexican or Spanish or whatever she is, but it just annoys me. Sometimes I like to daydream my own version of Dora. Like, this kid is what? 4 years old, and she just ventures off into the unknown with her monkey friend Boots? Great parenting, Dora's parents! Dora drags Boots on all these little adventures, and her parents don't even care. Sure, go hang out with a Monkey who could possibly turn on you and rip your face off while climbing mountains and trying to jump across icy rivers that contain alligators. Sounds like a good time. I would love to see Boots turn on Dora one day.Think about it, she drags him on all these asinine adventures every single day, he's gotta be sick it by now.  It'd be like, "Come on Boots, we have to cross the icy river, climb the tallest mountain, and crawl through the creepy cave!" Then Boots just starts jumping around, making all these wild monkey noises, flinging shit everywhere, then when Dora goes to calm him down, he just pulls her face off and runs away. Monkeys can be dangerous, Dora. Maybe he doesn't wanna go on all your crazy adventures. Get the net, or you're gonna end up like this:

Fuuuuck that.

I'm sick of your shit, Dora!

Ok, so he's not modeled after a chimp, but I do picture him being modeled after the above monkey, and in which case, he still looks pretty ferocious. He may not be able to rip off a face, but he sure as hell can chomp into one.
And what about Swiper the Fox? If you see a fox in daylight, it's probably because it's rabid. You'll be worrying about a helluva lot more than Boots' swiped toy firetruck, Ms. Explorer. "Where are we going!? HOSPITAL! Where are we going!? HOSPITAL!"

Run Dora, Run!

Ahh, good ol' Nickelodeon and its shows about crazy, foreign kids. I sure hope Chase doesn't get into these silly shows. If she does, I will be sure to mock them endlessly in front of her so she learns not to buy in.
("Oh my God, what kind of mother are you? "You're so immature!" "She's a child who likes a child's show, she can think for herself!") Shut your facehole, Society. I was only joking. Of course my kid can like/watch whatever she wants. And I'm sure by the time she's old enough to get into these kiddie shows, there will be a new politically correct icon for her to admire. Let's see, we've got the Spanish child, the Chinese child (Ni Hao, Kai-Lan), and we've had the African American child (Little Bill). Now we need a show about a deaf kid white kid or a kid in a wheel chair. Yay, diversity! (Ever notice how the white kids in these PC shows are always the ones with deficits?) Hmmm...
Oh, boy...it seems I have gone off on a tangent. Oopsies. Well, the baby is crying, so that would be my cue.
Thanks for stoppin' by, and if I've offended you, then my goal for the day has been reached. Adios! :)
(see what I did there? With the Spanish? Nice).

How about that?

Ok, so I'm probably going to do this blog on a weekly basis...I don't think that updating daily is necessary, but I am making this 2nd post the day after the 1st since that one was merely an introduction.

Now that we've cleared that up, I would like to take a moment to touch on a sad, but true fact. As stated in my previous post, a lot of housewives are misjudged. Society seems to picture us as overweight, lazy broads who run around in a housecoat with curlers in our hair. I'm not sure where this originated, and I admit that for Halloween one year, I dressed as this cliche housewife. Granted, I was only 10 years old, and my mom did help me with the costume...but I went out Trick-or-Treating in a nightgown,robe, slippers, and my hair tightly rolled in curlers. I also carried a doll around with me to further symbolize the stereotyped housewife. People just assume that because we don't have jobs, we just hang out in our pajamas doing nothing. Maybe I do hang out in my pajamas for a majority of the day, but let me tell you something...being a housewife is not as easy as I thought it would be. We wear many hats. The standard list of jobs for a housewife is as follows:
1) Daycare teacher
2) Laundress
3) Dish washer
4) Janitor
5) Nurse
6) Chef
7) Pet care giver
8) Housekeeper
9) Personal Assistant
10) Chauffeur
This list really could keep going, but I think after 10 titles, you get the idea. Just for fun, I followed the idea from another housewife's article about how much money a woman would make if she were paid for being at home. The average salary was something like $120,000 a year. WOW. I went to www.mysalary.com and calculated my own yearly salary...if I were paid for being a housewife based off of the hours I put into my family and house each week, I would make $130,062/year. That's crazy! Too bad we can't get paid for being housewives, but man, what a thought. A friend of mine (a male, of course) said I shouldn't be posting things like this because it's basically defending myself as a human. He says, "Don't trivialize things to sound self-important to people who don't get it." Why not? That's like telling certain races not to defend themselves when people stereotype them and put them down just for being different. Why shouldn't housewives (or anyone for that matter) tell it like it is? This blog is really just for fun, and if you don't want to read about my complaints to society, then stay off my blog. Simple as that. I can assure that I won't always be griping about how much the stereotypes and the criticism annoy me. These first 2 posts are really just a warm up, and outlining the facts. I'm not necessarily trying to sound "self-important", but I just wanted to open the eyes of some people who make snide comments about my not working despite having a degree. Maybe these people don't care or don't get it, but I know a lot of housewives are out there who can relate to me, and this blog is mostly for them.

Anyway, let's change the subject now, shall we? Good. Here is what my week will bring:
Today (Monday): Laundry and tackling the spare bedroom. (It looks like a scene from Hoarders in there).
Yes, that is only 2 things, but believe me, they will take up a majority of my day since I have to factor in caring for the baby between her naps, and making sure the dogs go outside enough to not leave me little surprises around the kitchen. I will probably get to eat lunch today, but normally, I eat standing up or while I'm cleaning. (Multitasking is a gift) I also am hoping to fit in a workout for at least 20 minutes. The husband will be sleeping until it's time for work, so I need to make sure his lunch is packed so he doesn't run late, and I have to get him up because he tends to sleep through his alarm. At some point, I have to feed the dogs their dinner and let them all back out. Letting them out is a pain in the ass because we currently do not have a fence. (The wood was rotting, and the dogs were easily able to escape). So now we have a long tether, and the dogs have to go out 1 at a time. Oh, and sometimes, the tether gets all tangled around the deck, and the dogs can't figure out how to reverse what they did, so I have to go out there in the freezing cold and untangle them. Fun.  At the end of the day, I will be able to sit down eat dinner, and watch the shows I dvr'd.
Tuesday: First thing in the morning, my car has to go be inspected by the insurance company because a week before Christmas, some little douche blew a stop sign and hit my driver's side. Both doors on that side are all banged in, I can't even open the back driver's side door. My window is all messed up too, it won't go up and down without getting stuck. After that, I will be cleaning the kitchen, and probably continuing the cleaning process in the spare bedrooms. I can almost guarantee it won't get done today.Factor in baby, dogs, and husband into this day. A friend of mine wants to go out in the evening, but we'll see what happens.
Wednesday: Car goes in to get fixed (FINALLY), and I get a rental car. Whoopee! I have an appointment at 12:30, then my mom asked me to bring the baby over for a visit. After that, I have to go to the grocery store, then back home for a possible work out, doing the baby's laundry, cooking, straightening up, then a friend is stopping by to pick up some baby stuff. My best friend and fellow housewife has invited me to a wine tasting party at her house Wed. evening, but if it's too cold, I will not be taking the baby out. (And I have to take her with me because the husband will be sleeping then going to work).
Thursday: Cleaning in the den and dining room (we don't normally use these rooms. They're closed off by glass doors that fold over), but I honestly don't clean in there enough, and I'm tired of the way the rooms look. I may try to somehow redecorate the den. There's no furniture in there other than 2 end tables and a chair. It's pretty lame. We're having a party here in March, and while that is far away, it's hard to stay on top of cleaning with a 2 month old. I may not even get to clean these rooms...who knows!
Friday: Ahh, the start to the weekend. I usually take it easy on Fridays because it's the start to the weekend, and I clean all week from Sunday to Friday. My little sister wants to stay the weekend with us, so at some point, I will be picking her up. I am having a few friends over on Saturday, so I will be straightening up just because I hate having people over when my house doesn't look immaculate. I know they don't care, but I do.
And even though my friends are coming Saturday, I will still be busy around here because I promised to put out some snacks, and I'll probably have to feed them dinner, too. They'll be here pretty much all day. Not that I'm complaining, I love my friends and I love that they're spending the day with me at my house, when the plan was originally supposed to be at my friend Matt's, but I asked that we change it to my house b/c I didn't want to be away from my baby too long. :/ The point is, even though I will have a fun day with friends, my house will still be cleaned and I will be making food/snacks to entertain. A housewife's work is never done. =)

Well, that's going to be my week. Oh, and before any smart asses out there comment and ask how I can keep up with this blog if I'm "so busy"...let me put it this way, it took me 2 1/2 hours to type this post. The baby woke up and needed to be fed and changed, then she was fussing, so I held her a while. When I finally got her settled, my 2 male dogs got into a fight over a rawhide bone, so I had to break that up. Aaaand, now the baby is crying again. Till next week, housewives and friends.

The birth of a housewife

Ok, so I am new to this world-o-blogging. Other than a few rants on my old Myspace page, I have never made a blog before in my life. So, this being said, I want to thank you in advance for reading and I hope I don't sound too retarded. (That's probably not politically correct, huh? Oh well, this is the internet...nobody said I had to be PC).

For my first entry, I would like to provide a little background on why I decided to do this in the first place. I am 25 years old, married to an awesome man, and we have a 2 month old daughter together. We live in a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom home and we have 4 crazy, tiny dogs. I have a degree in early childhood, elementary, and special education, have previously taught preschool, and substitute taught for a great school district. I have not worked since the end of May 2010, thus making me a, wait for it, housewife.

I could easily continue being a substitute teacher, but when I graduated college, I had it in my head that I would enter the real world and land MY ideal job of teaching kindergarten. "Picture it," I once said to myself, "Your own classroom inside of an amazing school within an amazing district, your own teaching style, implementing your own lesson plans.Picture it." What I didn't picture was how competitive this damned county is, how hard it is to get a job in the ideal district (fuck you, nepotism!), and how disappointing it would be in the long-run of teaching preschool. (sigh).  Throughout my pregnancy, the husband and I discussed what I would do about working. Would I substitute teach every day, 3 days a week, or less than that? What about childcare while I was at work? The husband works nights, and has to catch up on sleep during the day. My parents offered to babysit as often as possible, but surly they couldn't do it every day.
"What if you stayed home for a while?" The husband asked one day during my 2nd trimester. Hmm...what if I did? But then where would that leave us financially? What about my degree? Well, the husband said not to worry, we will be fine, and I can always go back to teaching at a later date if I so desired.
Who in their right mind would argue with this?! Most new mothers would kill to stay home with their babies. It's a privilege that I am truly grateful for. Now I can stay home and relax, cuddle my baby as much as I want with no interruptions, and sit on my ass eating bon-bons and watching soaps all day. AWESOME!

Ok, no...guys, seriously. Housewives DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT sit on their bums all day eating and watching television, nor do we all get the luxury of taking our husband's hard earned cash for a week full of shopping sprees with our bestest girlfriends. Forget about what you saw on those network shows about the "Real Housewives of (insert major city name here)" Those women aren't "REAL" housewives. They are rich, snooty, wenches who wouldn't know the hardships of being a housewife if it jumped up and bit them on their implants.

So follow me on my journey of being a young housewife. I will try as often as possible to update my readers (if any) on my day and what exactly I have been doing with all this "spare time."

I thank you kindly for reading my very first blog post, and hope that you become a regular. :)