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From::New Jersey, United States 100 Things About Me I'm 34 and happily married to a wonderful man. As you can see from the 8,000 pictures we have 2 adorable children! They make us smile, make us laugh, and then shock the hell out of us on a regular basis. We're totally learnin as we go here in the maniacal household, but we're havin fun!  along with my Darling Husband Come visit us!
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Monday, July 31, 2006Days and Nights Mixed UpWent camping and rafting this weekend, and didn't take ONE picture! Not one! First of all it took us like 4 years to get out of the dang house on Friday! We didn't even get to the campground Friday night till like 9:30! Good thing I can set my tent up with my eyes closed cause it was dark, and crowded. Apparently Mike and I can no longer "hang" as far as camping with our friends either. Oh, and what I mean by friends is the 3 people that we knew and their friends they brought with them. Cause apparently 2:30 - 3:00am is still too early for them to go to sleep. Now, I'm a partier and even with the baby I can usually hang with the best of them, but seriously.....I must be getting old. Cause when they were still up at 5 fucking AM in the morning on Friday night I started screaming from my tent to shut the DAMN RADIO OFF ALREADY!!!! I mean we were supposed to get up and be on the river at 10 am!!! Sheesh!!! Needless to say we didn't stay Saturday night, cause I'm all for fun but when you get up at 6am every day......5:30 am to sleep two night in a row will literally KILL YOU!! I think the problem was that I got there too late to get drunk enough to sleep though it. Plus, Mike can wake out of a deep sleep to the sound of a feather falling onto a down comforter, so Slayer at 4am kinda shook him a bit. Anyway, I went rafting. Even though I said I was going kayaking. I was talked into rafting. I KNEW the river was going to be low, and rafting was gonna be too hard (rafts are good in high fast moving water, but they are heavy as hell to row down a slow river) but I went anyway. And it was a bad idea, I'm an idiot. One good thing, my arms got a great workout. *shrug* OUCH!!! Remind me never to shrug again. I know it doesn't sound like it by what I wrote, but we had fun. After the River on Saturday Mike and I packed our stuff and went home. The baby would have been sleeping by the time we got home so we left her at my moms. Which means we went home, alone, and slept in our own bed, and didn't have to get out of the bed till we felt like it!!!! Which was better that 5 rafting trips!!! We forced ourselves (or....more like I FORCED BOTH OF US) to stay in bed till 9am!! Of course we were both up at 7:30, but we did NOT GET UP. OMG it was awesome! But we missed her to death! So basically on the night that we slept 3 hours we got up and rowed a heavy ass raft down a slow river for 5 hours, and the day we slept in late, we relaxed all day. I wish I could have scratched that, and reversed it!!  
Friday, July 28, 200620 Min for Grandpa and 2 days for usThursday after work I went to go pick up Allie from my parents house. My mother wasn't there. She had to drive my grandmother to the doctor's office, so my father was taking care of her for the last hour or so. She loves him! In fact she loves him more than I realized! When I get there, my father was outside talking to the neighbor and Allie was playing in the grass. When I walked up: Dad: We have a problem. Me: What? D: She has no diaper on. *I look down and sure enough she has her shorts on with no diaper* That's why I have her outside in the grass, just in case. Me: ummmm, ok, why doesn't she have a diaper? *confused look* Dad: I couldn't find them, I don't think we have any. Me: Did you look in the bag? Dad: What bag? Neighbor: Um the DIAPER bag? Dad: Oh, ummm no. There's a diaper bag? To his defense they usually buy their own diapers, so they don't normally have to go into the diaper bag. So I go in and get a diaper out of the bag, and I come back out and she is sitting on his lap. Neighbor pulls the shorts off and I put the diaper on, while on my father's lap. Me: Boy, your brave! I can't believe she didn't pee on you. Dad: It hasn't been that long....maybe like 20 minutes. 20 MINUTES??!?!?!? If it was me, she would have peed on me the SECOND I took her off the changing table....am I right? So, it's Friday. *sigh* I'm going camping this weekend. And when I say I'm going camping this weekend, what I mean is OMG I'M LEAVING MY LITTLE BABY OVERNIGHT!!!!!! Waahhhhhhhh I'm not going to be able to walk into her room in the morning and get the biggest cutest brightest smile in the whole world for 1 or maybe even 2 whole days!!! No hugs, no baby drool kisses, no CHEEKS!!! Can I survive? Can she survive? Is she gonna miss me? Are her grandmother's gonna spoil her to the point of no return? *sigh* I mean seriously, how freakin adorable is she?? How can I live without this face for a whole weekend?
P.P.S. My wonderful husband is in the running for who could talk the most shit over at Blugstuff. Go over there and vote for him. Cause he's funny as hell, AND cause when do I ever ask you to do anything for me? HUH?
Wednesday, July 26, 2006Say something that resembles anything!
Also, I'd like to say thank you for all my encouraging comments yesterday. I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I wouldn't change this "normal" feeling for anything. I love it!!! I guess that is what's so strange!
Monday, July 24, 2006When did I become normal?I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror on my way out of work on casual Friday, and was stopped in my tracks. Who was that woman? I donned neat dark blue jeans, brown slides, and a melon colored tight fitting polo shirt. My hair was even brushed straight and smooth and back in a headband. I was down right preppy! WTF? Then it hit me. Like in the movies, when the character’s life flashes in front of them in seconds. It hit me like a bus. I was normal! I (we) own a house that I bought with my (our) own money. I have a wonderful husband that I actually love. I'm a working mother, and I'm handling it pretty well. I'm a woman.....not a girl....a woman. And what's more....I’m a MOTHER.  I slowly walked out of work and to my car with my mind racing and in a cloud. In fact, I believe a couple of people said goodbye to me and I walked by them like I was possessed by aliens or something. I got in the car and started driving home. I didn't even turn the radio on. I'm not sure I would have heard it anyway. I started thinking about my life. The things I've seen and the places I've been. And when I say places, I refer more to the mental and emotional places. I thought about my life experiences post from that day, and how it seemed pretty full. But it doesn't even scratch the surface.
Friday, July 21, 2006Life ExperiencesI found this over at Bri's site. You Bold what you have done. Underline what you plan to do. (I'll try and be practical with what I plan on doing.)
Not bad, if I do say so myslef! Not tagging......but take it and post it if you want, and then let me know so I can read it!
Thursday, July 20, 2006*giggle*Well, I'm going BACK to the doctor today with Allie. Her Butt-Rash is almost totally gone. She thanks you all for the well wishes....by saying something to the effect of AHHDIIIDIT!!! Which sounds an awful lot like I DID IT! Which is funny, since she's constantly doing stuff that is bad (or at least un-approved), and then looks at you with a big cute smile and says AHH DIIID ITT!!!!) Now she has this prickly heat looking rash all over her face....and it's starting to spread to her back and arms. She's killin me this kid! Doesn't she REALIZE that I HATE going to the doctor? Sheesh. It doesn't seem to bother her at all.....but I don't like looking at it. Gee wasn't that an exciting blog post? LOL I'm not even going to ATTEMPT to stretch that out anymore. So....With a totally devoid of material that would be even the slightest bit entertaining, I bring you The Pew Song. This is a song that my friend Cheryl and I made up when we were about 15 years old. Please sing along to the tune of - "If your happy and you know it clap your hands!" The Pew Song I was sitting on my hiney in a pew I was sitting on my hiney in a pew Suddenly the bench vibrated just cause someone flatulated I was sitting on my hiney in a pew Suddenly the people left the church Suddenly the people left the church Someone said: "Was it you?" "Eww it smells like poo!" Suddenly the people left the church The smell it spread throughout the city Oh, the smell it spread throughout the city Everyone evacuated Just cause someone flatulated While sitting on their hiney in a pew. Cause well....farting in church is funny when your 15. Hell, farting in church is funny when your 32!
Tuesday, July 18, 2006Teething is a pain in the assNo, but really!! ...and literally! When I used to say to my mother that Althea was cranky or having trouble sleeping, she would respond: "Did you have to 'walk the floor'?" My answer to her was always....."well, noooo". Then she would laugh and say. "HA! When you have to do that, then call me!" Walk the floor. That was my mother's phase for pacing around the house with an inconsolable screaming child chanting something like....ohh kayy ohh kayy ohh kayy ohh kayy ohh for most of the night. I was a colicky baby. I had my days and nights confused. So my poor mother had her share of 'Walking the Floor'. *knocking on anything resembling wood* I never really had to do that with Allie. When she cried, there was a reason. I would do whatever she needed, no more crying. I never saw her inconsolable before....until Sunday. On Sunday morning Althea started to get a little rash. I didn't think much of it. Although she barely ever gets them, I thought maybe I didn't notice a poopy (yes I use the word 'poopy' scary isn't it?) diaper right away and she got a little irritated. Put a little cream...no big deal. Next diaper change comes along, and if you were in the next room, you would have thought nothing short of some medieval torture was going on. I've NEVER hear her cry like that! I almost cried myself listening to it. Then when I got to the part when I put the cream on to make it feel better.....magnify that torturous scream by 200% WHOA! Ok, guess that doesn't make it feel better, huh? After that there was no calming her down. Screaming....and I mean breaking your heart SCREAMING for what seemed like eternity. I tried everything....Mike tried everything....and we commenced 'Walking the Floor'. Although, not before we gave her some Tylenol. Finally the Tylenol took effect, and we gave her a bottle and it stopped....wheww But it wasn't over. From that point on every time we had to change her diaper, we had to deal with that screaming. And there was no sleep for the Maniacal Household on Sunday night. Monday morning came and there was no passing Go, no collecting $200, it was DIRECTLY to the doctor's office we went. Doctor walked in, and I said: "Ok I know this sounds stupid, but I'm here for a diaper rash." *cringes and waits for laughing* He was like....ok.....opened up the diaper and went - OH!!!!! and started writing prescriptions. *thinks to self* ok, maybe it's not stupid. So now, after 3 layers of cream at every diaper change, and a day and a half under our belts it's getting better. Apparently Allie's top teeth are starting to come in along with a couple of others, and this rash is a side effect of the teething. (I was kind dumbfounded actually....diaper rash is from teething?? uhhh ok) But whatever it is I am happy to report that we all slept through the night last night and I am at work today. *sigh of relief* All I can say is it's a damn good thing that I didn't have to deal with that screaming thing like my mother did. Cause I couldn't handle it. I wanted to crawl up in a ball and cry. Listening to that blood curdling scream.... OMG just kill me ....cause.... it hurt me to my core!
Monday, July 17, 2006Labor Dust WORKS! Back in May, a bit of labor dust sprinkled by me and a few other gals helped Jennifer from Mama's Moon get that labor under way. She now have an adorable little girl. So now it's time to help along Beth at My Life as a Mommy. Everyone within the sound (sight) of my voice (blog) go over to her site and sprinkle some labor dust. Between that and her "shit damn hell" walk, she'll be in the hospital in no time!!!Remember that last week or two? ugh!!!
Saturday, July 15, 2006DatesPlay Date:  Last week while I was off Allie had a play date with her girlfriend Gia. Neither of them have babies to interact with much so when they get together they aren't sure what to do. First they are cold. Allie looks at her daddy (who Gia LOVES) and gives him dirty looks like HOW DARE YOU play with another baby!!! Gia does the same thing. Then they get close enough to steal each other's toys and use each other as leverage to stand up. Eventually they start to think it's cool that they are both little and cute, plus all of us are all GooGooGaaGaa at them every time we think they do something cute...They look at us like HUH?? Allie is in a kissing faze. All her stuffed animals get big wet smooches every time she gets a hold of them. Mike and I are also in the receipt of these adorable drool filled open mouth kisses. Gia is doing the same thing to her toys and parents. So I guess it was only natural for them to be kissing each other. Which BTW was adorable! Except they both kiss with an open mouth, but cute nonetheless. After all that love they started beating each other up. Allie pinches, and it HURTS. She does it to me and Mike all the time. And her favorite spot to do it is of course your face! And Gia bites, which is just as painful. I guess this is a faze and it's gonna just go away.......right? So by the end of the date Gia had a red mark on her face from a pinch and Allie......had this:Date Night: In other dating news, Mike and I had our first Date Night! We went out ALONE and had dinner and went to go see Pirates of the Caribbean. It was so nice. My MIL came over to watch Allie, which she adores doing, and we got to go out alone. Win/Win. My review on the restaurant was ehhh (we just moves to this town and figured we'd try it out) and my review of the movie was thumbs up! Of course you have to see the first movie or this one makes no sense. Also if may feel as if it drags a bit, but all 2nd movies in a Trilogy feel this way because there is no real ending. The whole thing is middle. I can't wait for it to come out on DVD or on cable so I can watch it like 100 times and totally pick it apart. As you can tell from Mike's post the other day, we like doing that. We both kind of have a movie fetish. Well, ta for now. Hope everyone is stayin cool and having a nice weekend.
Thursday, July 13, 2006Fear and Falling in Maniacal HouseholdFear.  I'm not a fan. I don't like being afraid of things. It shows weakness. I don't like being weak. I try and confront my fears whenever possible. Afraid of heights? Jump out of a plane. You'd be surprised how the things you THOUGHT were high are not so high anymore. When I was pregnant I was terrified of giving birth. It pissed me off. Most women do it, and more than once. Woman I feel I'm much stronger than have accomplished this task with out much issue, so what is my problem anyway? I ended up having an appointment c-section, and although that was scary as well I skated the birthing issue for now. Fear, however, can sometimes be a good thing. I feel you should have some degree of fear of your parents. For the record, I do not believe in beating your kids. That is not the type of fear I'm speaking of. I'm speaking of the fear that if you do not do what you are supposed to do, what your parents taught you is the right thing to do, that there will be consequences. If your doing something and you get "The Look" you should stop in your tracks and realize....huh, maybe this is a bad idea. My mother says she doesn't agree with me here, and you shouldn't fear your parents. Your parents should teach you what's right and you should just DO IT. But she always spoke of her father and that her greatest FEAR is that she would disappoint him. Well, that is a fear. It doesn't have to be fear of physical harm, but fear of something.  In religion there is fear of hell. This is the consequence for not doing what your supposed to do. Doing what the church taught you was the right thing to do. Same thing. When raising your children outside of the church, you need to instill this fear yourself. Now, when I say OUTSIDE the church what I mean by that is whether we baptize Althea or not (we ARE going to....one day), I have a feeling that we are not going to be the type of parents that bring their children to church every Sunday and send them to Sunday school every week and follow the religion to the T. We are going to have teach our own values, and have our own consequences that don't have anything to do with hell.At 9 months old we are at the very beginning of that stage. We are working on understanding what the word NO even means. Teaching her to understand that when we say NO, it means she shouldn't do what she's doing. Getting her to remember from day to day what we said no about, and to not do it BEFORE we say no again. She responds to this training with having a temper tantrum. Flailing her arms and legs and screaming and crying, and getting those BIG crocodile tears to work for her. Mike and I are trying not to YELL at her, and to just be consistent and to use those No's sparingly as to not confuse her. It's hard. And it's not going to get any easier. We haven't touched the idea of consequences yet. First we need to work on no, and what it means. Another type of Fear that is good, is understanding the limitation of your body and your surroundings. Fear of heights, for example. You should be afraid, to some extent, of falling off a building cause it will kill/hurt you!  Of course that fear shouldn't paralyze you, but it should exist. If your a 9 month old, you should be afraid of crawling off the bed, or off the top of the staircase, cause it will hurt you. How do you teach this type of fear to your child? My friend has a daughter 3 months older than Althea. She put her on the bed for a second. Went to QUICKLY pull her shirt off to change it and in that second her daughter crawled off the bed and hit the floor fracturing her collar bone. She now knows not to crawl off the bed. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that technique in teaching Althea about the stairs. So instead we have a gate. I can't put a gate, however, around every couch and every bed the child ever comes in contact with. She is a daredevil. She LOVES the idea of free falling! One day she will be a great Six Flags Theme Park companion, but for now it is difficult to keep her from hurting herself.So, here's my question. How do you feel about Fear? And how the hell am I supposed to stop Allie from thinking it's fun to free fall backwards off the couch!?!?!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006All Stars****Pickelness, you might as well just pass this post by**** Jenn: Guess what's on tonight!!!! *all giddy* Mike: The All Star Game? Jenn: Well if by All Star Game you mean BIG BROTHER: ALL STARS then YES!!!! -------------------------------------------- Where are my Big Brother fans?? Who's watching? Who do ya love? Who do ya hate? Talk to me girls!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006Is my head attached? Sometimes I feel like such a scatterbrain. I forget my pocketbook at home. I leave my wallet on the counter in the store. I forget to put my wedding ring on before leaving for work. I forget to take my wedding ring off when I go to bed. I forget to open the window in the shower to let the steam out. If I do remember, I forget to shut it to keep the air conditioning in. I loose my sunglasses. I forget my cell phone at home, at my mothers, at work, in the car. Oh and my keys? I never know where the hell they are! In fact AS I'm writing this post I just got a call that the diaper bag with the change of clothes and formula for the day is IN MY CAR, and not AT MY MOTHER'S house with the baby! What the hell is wrong with me?  On the outside, I got it all under control. I work, I have a baby, I have a semi-clean house, I go out with my friends still, I even cook dinner occasionally, I am SUPER MOM! But on the inside, I'm barely holding it together. Seriously, if it wasn't for Mike I'd be in bed crying under the covers about what a complete incompetent I am. I find that I ask that question of myself a lot. What the hell is wrong with me? This isn't that hard! Mike never forgets his stuff. He's got this perfect routine that has everything in place. He always knows where everything is, and he would never forget something important like a DIAPER BAG! He just wouldn't. With the amount of help that I get from him, I should be shot that I can't even remember to bring the freakin diaper bag inside the house. I mean HE packed it this morning for god sake. All I had to do was carry it in! It's like I'm walking around in a cloud sometimes. Luckily I remembered to bring the baby inside, it's kinda hot out today.Mike's so sweet too, constantly tells me what a good mommy I am.  And I know you're all gonna say the same thing. But seriously.....why can't I just have my head on my shoulders straight and be normal. I don't think it's that hard to remember stupid things like that. We go somewhere and when we are leaving to go home, Mike makes sure that he grabs everything and puts it in the car. Including my pocketbook and anything else of mine. Cause if he didn't, I'd be sure to leave something. When we leave in the morning he goes over the checklist: Phone? Keys? Purse? Passkey? Money? *sigh* Maybe I just partied too much when I was younger.
Saturday, July 08, 20069 months - Let the Tantrums Begin!As Mom 101 pointed out 9 months is kind of a big deal. Althea has been outside me interacting with the world as long as she was inside me getting ready for it. Well I can tell you that it feels longer. At this point pregnancy is almost a blur. You mean there was a time that I DIDN'T have a daughter....no way...stop! Well. this month was a big one for changes. Mainly those changes are in my house. My whole house is now a playroom.
I feel like I say NO like a million times a day. She used to respond to the word, but now.......well, now she just speeds up doing what she knows she's not supposed to do so that she can complete her dastardly deed before I have time to get there. Then when I grab her to "redirect" her to her toys, she throws a fit. Flailing in every direction kicking and screaming...literally. I ignore it, say "Are you done?" Then just as quickly as her whole world fell apart because I wouldn't let her eat the cat food out of the bowl, she's off on her next destructive mission big smile and all.
She's started with a little bit of stranger anxiety this month also. It's weird because it's random. I guess it's not necessarily STRANGER anxiety then is it? Anyway, one day you'll be fine in her book and then next your the scariest person in the world and the lip comes out and the pouty face and then WAHHHHHHHHHH. *shrug* It's odd. My friend Billy got the brunt of it the other day. It just happened to be his day. I'm not sure where it comes from. She sees new people all the time, I'm constantly taking her out to parties and stuff. I guess it's just a faze. Anyway, she's huge and all big and grown up and everything and I can't believe it! =o( My little baby is gone. If fact when I hold her she's like half my height. (Yes I know I'm short, but STILL!) I just know I'm gonna blink and she'll be a year old. *sigh*
Wednesday, July 05, 2006Week of Make Believe***UPDATED***  This week on Ms. Maniacal's Neighborhood we will be pretending that we are a Stay at Home Mom. We'll find out the challenges a mother faces when attempting to cram everything she'd love to accomplish while staying home with her daughter into 3 vacation days.On the list?
HA! Good luck right? ***UPDATE*** WED NIGHT 8PM: Play with Allie - Check! Shower? - umm no Clean the house - HAHA Do laundry - nope Dinner - YES....was it good...ehhh Park - no Napping - yes, schedule - no Food in mouth - NO Sippy cup - NO Play date - yes...stay tuned! Blog? - But Of COURSE!!!
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