quick, more later i promise

Both gigs went beautifully.  A few blessings were thrown my way and my arms held up perfectly.  I even played not-awful!  But seriously - coming home to this wee family of mine was pure magic.  Oh, I thoroughly enjoyed myself on my weekend away.  I wasn’t homesick or mopey.  But upon returning to my wonderful kids and my amazing husband… I’m feeling about a bazillion times richer.

On a jet plane. Sigh. Goodbye sun. Hello snow.

Gig well played. It’s nice to feel like a fiddler again for a weekend.

I is on a train in the Atlanta!!!! Gig #1 with the Collies in less than 3 hours!! My left arm is seriously hurting, so prayers and Advil would be much appreciated. Eeeeeeeeee!! I can’t believe I’m here, sans kids, getting paid to rock again!!!! Surreal, but awesome :)

I’m heading to Atlanta tomorrow to get my celtic fiddle on with the Border Collies.  COME.  WATCH.

GPOYW - New! edition.  That mirror in my entryway?  New!  That shirt I’m wearing?  New!  It was a mens large, but I took my handy dandy sewing machine, traced the outline of a shirt that fits and sewed it so it fit me.  Woohoo!

Oh, did I mention I’m going to Atlanta Friday to play 2 nights of gigs with the Collies?  It seems like such a good idea before I realize how terrified I am to get in front of an audience and rock it after almost 2 years off.  Please, oh PLEASE let my arms hold up… please oh PLEASE let me be able to get my fingers to move fast again… 

With Pat the Bunny as my witness, these Will. Be. Mine.

monster toddler day

The Dude’s 18 month checkup could not have gone worse.  Really.  Although, he didn’t cut his head open on the doctor’s desk this time, so that’s nice.

He was still covered in this allergic reaction rash, and completely loopy on Benadryl, so being forced to stay in a small room and be told you may NOT eat the stirrups on the exam table was pure torture.  He is usually the biggest charmer and entrances the nurses to the point that they even forget to check some things because they are so busy flirting with him.  This time… not so much.  He was someone else.  And when they went through the list of milestones, I was so distracted that I answered them if he WILL, and not if he CAN.  Like,  ”If you give him a crayon and paper, will he scribble or draw on the paper?”  So I said no - because he EATS the crayon so fast.  I have no earthly idea if he would.  They asked if he eats with a fork and spoon.  Well, he can - I’ve let him - and he was remarkably deft with that spoon, but once he realized he had that skill down, he moved on to making the utensil his newest weapon, and hairbrush. I feed him the squishy stuff to make it easier on everyone involved.  So when they asked that question, all I could think of over his screaming was yogurt-covered hair and I said no.  GAH.

They asked me if he’d stack blocks - and I said no, since I’ve only ever seen him smash them.  Although today as we were sitting in the toy room, after WonderGirl was fed up with the Dude pushing all of her blocks down and started playing with something else, the Dude looked around, realized there was nothing left for him to demolish…. so he picked up a block, put it on top of another one and smacked the heck out them.  So apparently he CAN.

They asked if he would point to a body part if you named it.  My mind went blank - I’d forgotten to teach him that.  Seriously, I’ve been obsessed with getting him to do the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  The doctor asked him to show him his nose, and in his MARVELOUS mood the Dude looked at him and said the most distainful “….nooooooooo…… you’ve ever heard.

Oh, and then they gave him a shot and took some blood out of his finger.  He was an angry, bloody Tazmanian devil.  The best/worst part was all the nurses looking at my struggling with coats, his spastic self, bags and paperwork like they’d never seen someone try to go out in public with a toddler.  When he ripped off the shoddy “bandaid” right after the nurse put it on - she seemed surprised and almost annoyed at my obvious lack of control of my child.  Thankfully another nurse who has an 18 month old came to my aid and taped all his fingers together.  Oh MAN he was mad, but that bandaid stayed on for a whole 5 minutes!

I came home, sat on the floor and sobbed.  The Dude was now running around, happy as a clam because he was free to roam and there was no one around to be appalled at my parenting.  I wondered what I was doing wrong.  He’s not as advanced as WonderGirl so obviously he has delays that I’m not addressing and because of this, I am officially the worst mother in the universe.

I looked at him happily gnawing on the couch and asked him for a hug.  He lit up,rushed to me and wrapped his little arms around me, and then tried to give me a kiss, but mostly ended up mauling my face.

The kid’s aiiight.  Can I have a do over appointment??

I caught WonderGirl cleaning her room the other day.  Twas AWESOME.  Hmmm.  Spellcheck said “twas” is a word.  I figured there would be an apostrophe involved somewhere.

Anywho, awesomeness.

I really miss husband.  He’s doing the work thing in LA for a bit.  The last time I saw him was Tuesday night, and I won’t get to see him again until Friday morning.   (In my sleep Tuesday night I was so over worked about him leaving the next morning that I kept rolling over to sleep on his side of the bed to make myself feel better, but since he was actually there all I did was keep waking him up and making him mad.  Silly subconscious.)   This single mommy thing is not for pansies.  There are crunchy things all over the floor and a rash alllll over the Dude.  I took him in yesterday - it’s apparently a reaction to amoxicillin.  No big deal, unless the sight of massive red lesions all over your toddler tends to bother you.

GPOYW - The Only Picture Of The Greatest Tower Ever edition.

“Mommy, Mommy, I made a tower - take a picture with me!!”

“Ooo, nice!  But sweetie, I just got out of the shower and I look all bleeeeegh, but I’ll take a picture of you with the tower.”  

“NNNOOOOO  PLEASE Mommy!!  Be IN the picture with me and the tower!!  PLEASE!!!  I love you AND the tower!!!!”  

“Well, okay sweetie.  Let me set the timer.”

*click*

“Yay!  Take another, Mommy!!  This is the best tower ev - ” *blam*

How many interviews did I give and say, ‘You know what’s important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids’? I said it a lot. And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, ‘You don’t need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.’ Well, I’m the first guy to say to them right now: You were right. I should have been a better parent. I should have said, ‘Enough is enough—it’s getting dangerous and somebody’s going to get hurt.’ I should have, but I didn’t. Honestly, I didn’t know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere.

How many interviews did I give and say, ‘You know what’s important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids’? I said it a lot. And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, ‘You don’t need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.’ Well, I’m the first guy to say to them right now: You were right. I should have been a better parent. I should have said, ‘Enough is enough—it’s getting dangerous and somebody’s going to get hurt.’ I should have, but I didn’t. Honestly, I didn’t know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere.
Billy Ray Cyrus (side note - when I was in middle school there was a harpist in our orchestra who couldn’t afford a full sized hard yet, so she played a small Irish one.  I wrote her a song called “My Itsy Bitsy Harp” to the tune of “Achy Breaky Heart.”  I’m still immensely proud of it.)

Weezer : Love Is The Answer While putting together a mix for our family Valentine’s Day dinner, I rediscovered this tune. Sitar, bagpipes, Weezer… good times. Then I put the husband in charge of adding to the list. Anthrax, Biz Markie, Fog Hat… and Pinch and Roll?? Really???

Weezer : Love Is The Answer

While putting together a mix for our family Valentine’s Day dinner, I rediscovered this tune.  Sitar, bagpipes, Weezer… good times.  Then I put the husband in charge of adding to the list.  Anthrax, Biz Markie, Fog Hat… and Pinch and Roll??  Really???

(via katiefab:letschillkiddo:lostintheradio)

Okay, I’m not in Michigan, but I’m next to it.  I think.  Seriously, it’s a heat wave.  40 degrees is the best feeling EVER.  I was far less homicidal yesterday as a result.  Of course being Valentines Day, all the red and chocolate did sweeten the pot.  I have some seriously AWESOME pictures from the day with my new fancy camera, but the card reader is being mean and my computer (the one with a functioning card reader) has decided it doesn’t want to play nice with the wireless.  Blah.  So tomorrow perhaps.

Suffice to say, despite having the Dude scream at me for a good portion of the morning, I am in a remarkably decent mood.

Guess what else I did??  I MADE THIS TOO.  My crafty SIL helped me make my own dress once, just by tracing the outline of one of my favorite shirts onto some material and making it longer, so I figured I could do that again.  This time I actually traced it onto some paper and made a pattern, then cut the material (I cut the back piece 3/4 inch wider on both sides, somewhere on the intrawebs told me this would make it fit better) and then I sewed it up.  I’ve been fiddling with it the last few days, sewing it a little more here and there (the neckline has been the biggest pain - I’m SO afraid to cut it, you can can always make something smaller, but you can’t make it un-cut), until where I’m almost done.  I’m going to try something with elastic in the sleeves so I can raise my arms a little easier, but other than that, I’m pretty pleased.  I’m always so sick of dresses that have a neckline that is juuuust a bit too big, or juuuuust a bit too short.  This isn’t the fanciest dress, but it’s modest and easy.  COOL, HUH?!  I’m trying to get the guts up to wear it to church… we’ll see if that ever happens…

Oh, and I’m not wearing the cardigan to cheat - I’d always planned on wearing one with it.  My shoulders are the weirdest part of my anatomy and I’m all about camouflaging there.  I swear under it, there are puffy sleeves.  Yeah, puffy!

Look at this face.  Such a sweet face, right?  NO.  This is the face you get just before he tries to bite you.  HE’S SUCH A FLIPPIN’ BOY.  Ug, at this point WonderGirl knew the entire alphabet, could say “please” and “thank you” and… well, NOT BITE ME.  I thought when he started walking at 10 months that he’d develop around the schedule she had, but apparently he started walking earlier just so he could get to the nearest outlet and lick it.  He gets so frustrated because he doesn’t have what he wants RIGHT NOW and he can’t tell me, so he bites.  He actually starts growling and snarling like a rabid dog, too.  He’s so sweet, why can’t he just start talking like a girl???  PLEASE????

Oh, and he hits.  I honestly feel like I’ve been beaten up by the end of the day (he just head butted me, too).  When WG hit at this age, we taught her how to touch softly.  This does not please him.  So he scratches.  Dagnabit, he goes into nursery next week, I CAN’T have my kid be the biter!  But he is.  He tried to bite a poor little girl yesterday, just because he was furious at me for not letting him play with a heater.

I take it back - I thought I was not a fan of the baby stage, but he was an adorable saint compared to toddlerhood.  Baby Dude was AWESOME.  I do like preschooler though… but I don’t think I’ll survive until then.  

GPOYW - Fancy Schmancy Camera edition.  Unfortunately, this was the best picture of me.  All the other ones are of me crying because I had decided I was too hideous for a picture.  Seriously, you should be totally jealous that you aren’t married to me.

Did I mention we got one of them sweet SLR camera thingys this weekend?  We were sick of all the pictures of the Dude with his eyes shut, and this one is a humdinger.  (Good golly, Google Chrome spellcheck didn’t flag humdinger - that’s an actual word!  Funny though - it just flagged “spellcheck.”)  The quality of our content hasn’t changed, but look how fancy we all look in SLR world!!

(yes, the Dude is eating a hammer.)

Blocks : Hourglass I feel like dancing around to this today. You do it too - right now - wherever you are - and tell me what happens. I was grooving to this and the Dude tried to bite me. Hope you fare better.

Blocks : Hourglass

I feel like dancing around to this today.  You do it too - right now - wherever you are - and tell me what happens.  I was grooving to this and the Dude tried to bite me.  Hope you fare better.

GPOYW - I MADE THIS edition.  I had a rehearsal for a gig last night, so I didn’t get this posted up, but I DID IT!!!  Remember how bad I wanted to make the Upcycled T-Shirt Dress??  Well, I figured out how to use my sewing machine and I DID IT!!!  Then for good measure, I used some of the extra material to make the flowers with nothin’ but some scissors and hot glue (tutorial here).

I AM SO HIGH ON AWESOME.  And maybe the glue gun.  Whatever, I made something!!!  Something not awful!!!!!!

Queen For a Day day at my mommy meeting. They had each one of us come up to the front, get crowned, and then they gave us a letter from “someone who loves you.” At first I thought “how cheesy, and how embarrassing when I’ll probably be the only one without one.” It turns out they’d contacted all our husbands to write us a love letter. I’m still bawling - not cheesy. Thankfully all the other ladies are bawling too so I don’t seem like such a dork.

&%$&*^%$&^$(&*^$#^&$!!!!&^*

SNOW DAY 3.  I HAVEN’T LEFT THE HOUSE IN 2 DAYS.  BOTH KIDS ARE SNOT FACTORIES AND THE DUDE HAS PINK EYE.  PINK EYE.  AND THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE IS CLOSED DUE TO THE SNOW.

all in favor of punching yourselves in the face to divert the pain, say aye.

I made Facebook page for my Treble Maker site.  I’m so honored to join this fancy schmancy exclusive club!!  I mean, they don’t give Facebook pages to just ANYone.  Right?  So would y’all puleeeeze be a dear and maybe “Like” it?  I promise I won’t be spamming you all the time,  I just want to look all popular and cool.

Wait, did I type that last part out loud?  The edit-part of my brain is frozen.

(gotredonyou)

SERIOUSLY.  STOP THIS.