I wish I was 2 again.

I brought home a small bundle of balloons today.

Booger is now standing on a red toy bucket, no pants, playing with the balloons, and singing her ABCs.

She is the most amazingly happy child in the world right now.

Squeaker is watching her and you can just see her little mind thinking "My sister is the coolest thing ever."

I am jealous and laughing all at once.

Screw You, Royal Wedding!

It is the national holiday of my house!  It is Kimmie-Day!  Today we celebrate the day that I joined the world. 

That deserves a bank holiday at least.  It's way cooler than this so called "Cinderella" story.  I mean really?  Just how much of a commoner can Catherine Middleton be when her parents were rich enough to send her to the same private schools as the freaking prince of England?

Whatever.

My mom, on these occasions, likes to remind me of my coming into life.  Apparently I was an impatient little jerk.  All doped up with her epidural, and happily watching the Friday episode of General Hospital, which I am told is the "cliffhanger" episode, Mama is content with her pregnancy for the moment and is not in a rush to have it end right at that very second.

Five minutes until the end of this gloriously dramatic broadcast masterpiece, I decide that soap operas suck and no longer want to be subjected to them, even via womb. An opinion I still hold. 

My mother, therefore missed the ending of her cliffhanger episode, but gained a daughter.  She says she was ecstatically happy, but she hasn't stopped griping at me about it for 28 years.  I begin to doubt her sincerity.

Well, leading up to the anniversary of my birth, the universe decided to allow me to build up a little credit.

At some point early in the week, I realized I had misplaced my purse and wallet, which also contained a $100 bill from my in-laws and a $50 gift card.  I spazzed out for three days, turning my house, car, and work place up-side down and coming closer and closer to the conclusion that it may have been stolen.

FINALLY,  yesterday night, after once again tearing the house to pieces, Husband looks at me and says "Babe, I don't think it's here."  And I'm about to cry.

Then, as if a joke.  "Unless.... What if?"

And he starts picking up some work stuff he had set in the hall way.  And what is under this stuff?

YAY!

Fast forward to the greatest day of the year.  Another early day and I'm feeling particularly unmotivated, because once again, the damn soda machine is out of Dr. Pepper.

So, just about everyone in the store knows of my little obsession.  It is my dark passenger.  There was a long period of time (well over a week) in which the soda company did not refill the machine.  I was pretty sure that I was going to die and instructed Husband to pursue legal action against them for my untimely end.

Upon my discovery of my once again sad and empty life with no Dr. Pepper, I may have been heard by my lead all the way across the store.  He laughed at me. 

Seriously?  I am being denied my elixir of life and he's laughing.  He has to be the most ungrateful little turd in the history of the world.

After we finish up, he says he's going to take a quick break. 

Yeah, sure, whatever.

When he comes back, he comes in the office and says he got me a birthday present.

He truly is the best employee ever and I don't know what I would do at work without him.  The boy needs a raise.  And a pony.

PS.

The universe seems to have decided that it gave me too much credit.  A case of Dr. Pepper is just too much good fortune for one day.  I have managed to ruin two batched of cupcakes that I have successfully made in the past.

I fail.

Oh! Look at the shiny!

This has been me for the past few days.  It's starting to get pretty bad.

I generally work 10 hour shifts, and when I'm focused and productive, they really do seem to go by pretty fast.  I'm on my feet and solving problems all day, so it's mentally and physically rewarding.  Lately, however, I've just been a walking, yawning, whining, lump of lazy.

If I weren't me, I'd punch me in the face.

For this ignoble fall into lethargy, I blame my phone.  It is responsible for me checking Facebook fifty times while I'm supposed to be planning and organizing for an overnight.  The phone is the reason why I can't get motivated and tackle my list of to-dos.

And of course, because my phone has access to YouTube, the world will clearly end if I don't show everyone at work videos I find hilarious.  

On the other hand, I did come up with a plan of what I'm going to play for people the next time someone calls in sick.

And of course, the simple fact that the current is an insane internet sensation makes for fun all it's own.  Forget about Rebecca Black.  I have been watching a better one all day.

I really need to get my act back together.

Booger's New Teacher

We like our daycare.  It's a cute little building near the local HEB run by really sweet people and is pretty inexpensive.

Whenever we pick up the kids, it seems like all the teacher's know our daughters' names.  Especially so for Booger. 

Because she's loud, and has been there since she was 6-weeks old, and has a tendency to take off her clothes in public.

She's also just a bit of a bully and perhaps she's on the bossy side.  She also hogs the toys and climbs up on all the furniture. It is not unusual for us to get an incident report saying that she got in an argument with another child when she took a toy away from him, and then hit/bit by the retaliating child (and the other way around).   Nor is it unusual to get one saying that she fell and bumped her head when she climbed on top of the table and started jumping and singing.

At snack time, she always finishes all of her cookies before any of the other kids have half of their first one down, and then demands more.

Yeah, all the teachers know my Booger.  It is really cute when she is leaving and hollering at the top of her lungs, "Bye Bye!   Bye Bye everybody!  Have a good weekend!" 

It's really funny when it's a Monday.  Damn, my child is awesome!

We love our daycare, and recently, it seems that they have added a new teacher.  For the last few days, this teacher has been in charge of Booger's class.  Husband is generally in charge of dropping off and picking up the girls, so I have not yet had the encounter her, but for working in a daycare, she doesn't seem to like little kids.

I surmise from speaking with husband that she is something like this:

Twice this week, Husband has brought home dirty clothes in a plastic bag.  Not strange in that our two-year old is potty training.  However, this is the first time that a teacher has sent home the dirty clothes with a large amount of poop in them! 

Ridiculous and disgusting!!!


Here!  Let me reenact a scenario Husband described.

Booger:  DADDY! (comes running up and flailing arms)

Ms. Jerky-Pants: Stay off the tile!  It's wet.

Husband (in gentler voice): Get back on the carpet, Sweetie.  The tile's wet.

Ms. Jerky-Pants: Yeah, the tiles wet.  She peed on it.

Husband: Um... she's two.

Today, Husband brought her home with a full dental impression on her arm.  When he asked about it in the office, they said there had not been an incident report turned in.  He went to ask the teacher, who in formed him that she  instigated it by taking toys away. 

Again, no report? it looks like a screenshot from CSI!

This is getting very uncool, very quickly. 

Here, now look at Grissom!

The only reason I watched that show

Watching "Tangled" Again.

Because it's a fantastic Disney movie.  As much as I miss good 2-D animated movies, "The Princess and the Frog" does not come close to this.

The male lead in this one just makes me laugh, but probably not for the reasons the animators intended (Although I laugh for all those reasons too.  Seriously, nothing but love for this film.)

A short on the Disney channel said when designing the character, they wanted to make him very popular with the ladies in looks alone. So they went around getting ideas from all the female employees.

Pictures say it best.

That's right!  Give the boy a light saber!  The hottest man that could possibly be imagined is still Harrison Ford.  Flynn Rider is Han Solo.

Husband's Phone Destroyed Society

Booger is about 28 months old right now, and one of her favorite words is "mine."


When you stop through the kitchen and grab a snack from the jar, she comes running in shouting, "My cookie!"


You're sitting on the couch, relaxing, and watching some TV. You reach for a glass to take a drink of water and hear, "My water!"


Squeaker is playing in the bumbo and her random hand flailing leads to her touching the stuffed lamb,"No!  That's mine!  My Lovie!"


So our cell phone plan is up for renewal/upgrade and has been for about two months.  The last time this happened, my glorious Mommy blessed me with the greatest of gifts that is the beautiful piece of technology that brought my dark and dreary life out from the shadows and into the sun.

 And there was much rejoicing

Yes, I carried in my pocket more technology than NASA used to put a man on the moon.

Now this phone has been very good to me for the past two years.  Has entertained me on jogs with music, has distracted me from work with App Games, and has let me play on the internet while stopped at red lights.  I got it when they still offered unlimited internet, and have kept that data plan ever since, pleased with my being grandfathered in to being able to screw the system if I so chose.

Now because there was only one data plan available at this time, Husband instead chose to replace his phone with something more modest and without an internet option.  You wouldn't really know because he kept stealing mine any time we were out together. 

After a long two years, my phone is still great.  I invested in the Invisible Shield, so my screen is still perfect.  I have one speaker that is a little wonky, but I usually use headphones to listen to music, so it's livable.  And I've kept up with updates, so I'm pretty pleased with how it operates.  Husband's phone looks like shit is not as nice as mine.

Over the radio, I keep hearing adds from AT&T saying you can get the IPhone 3GS, which is the same model I have,  for $50 with a renewal or new contract.  We also take a good hard look at my internet usage and see that I can step down to a smaller plan for about half the cost and most likely not notice it.  Sweet right?

Husband gets a new phone.  We both have internet.  We spend about the same per month.  And all this is the low cost of only $50.  Everybody wins right?

So we go to the AT&T store, and the trouble starts almost immediately.  Husband walks in and makes a joke about going and watching basketball on the TV that is playing on the far side of the store.  Booger starts running crazy around the store.  So I am responsible for updating Husband's phone by myself and still end up wrangling Booger from her destructive tendencies. 

Then Phone Guy starts showing me the new phone.  It is the same phone as mine, but different.

It has a video camera.

It has voice recognition.

You can change the background screen instead of just the welcome/lock screen.

And I morphed from a reasonable, adult, mother of two into this:

My Preciousssss!

About this time, Husband has disappeared from the small sales floor, and Phone Guy asks if I want to download my information on the new phone and Husband's on my phone.  The serpent had offered the apple.  I instantly start thinking of all the arguing points as to why this is a wonderful idea.  But when Husband returns, I later learned that he made an emergency trip to the potty with Booger to avoid further humiliation, he is not as impressed with this idea as I am.

I have no defense for the way I felt/acted after this point.  I admit fully that I was being quite unreasonable with my frustration.  But quite frankly, I did not give a fuck.

I WANTED THE VIDEO CAMERA! 

I mean seriously.  I've had my phone for 2 years and it's still almost perfect!  I've done everything I'm supposed to!  And you're too good for my phone?!  

Again, logic does not prevail with blind hatrid and Gollum-like mentalities. 

I then proceeded to be in a pissy-ass mood for the rest of the evening.  I had become my 2-year old.

Schwans Man Saves the Day

Happy April Fools!  The universe plays one hell of a joke.

I began the day at 3:00am, which sadly is not unusual.   Met my coworker and walked in to work, and was surprised that I could not clock in right away.  No big, used an over-ride, clocked in, and began to run some reports.

And then I looked at the schedule.  I wasn't supposed to be in for another five freaking hours!  I could still be sleeping!  (There may have been some growling involved at this point.)

It may have looked something like this.

Fast forward to when I actually was scheduled to work:

 

Somehow, during the time when I went back to sleep, the servers for all the computer systems at work decided to say a big FU to the world in general.  This kept the registers from being able to process any debit transactions at all, and credit cards worked every now and then.  Much to the dismay of customers, we frequently had to resort to the old manual imprint of credit cards.

 

One very grumpy old man got very short about it.  Like we were purposefully resorting to stone age methods just to mess with him.  You caught us!  April Fools!

We also have the surveys that print out on the receipts.  Lots of places have these, and if you're not aware, I'm going to let you in on a secret.  They often have you rate your experience on some preset scale.  Ours is from 1-5.  THIS IS A LIE!

The truth is, it does not matter how you rate your experience, unless you give a perfect 5.  Everything else is a big fat 0.  It's a yes-or-no question with 4 nos to 1 yes.

Only problem is, these surveys pretty much rule my professional life.  If the store doesn't  make our preset goals, I can kiss any chance of bonus, promotion, or peaceful cohabitation in the world goodbye.  So unable to do anything involving a computer for the whole of my work day, I dedicated myself solely to customer service, tried to let everyone know about our register troubles as they entered so they could plan for alternate payment options in advance, or else just be prepared for a longer wait for their credit transactions, but a part of me still died inside every time I saw one of those little surveys print out.

Eventually, I managed to be able to throw myself into my car and head for home, and was faced with the ever daunting question of "What are we going to do for dinner?"

 

Husband is usually unhelpful with this question, but as Booger was being her usually destructive self and Squeaker was not yet sure if she was hungry or not, I'll have to forgive that.  

But Huzzah!  Just as I'm about to turn right into our subdivision, who is making a left-hand turn from the opposite direction?  Who ends up right in front of me on his lovely route to deliciousness?  

Schwans Man!!!

 

 

I now have two sleeping babies, a full belly, and Harry Potter on my television.  

I'm good.