Miracle suit

I just realized I have a girl's weekend coming up and apparently it might involve lounging by the pool. I heard that and was like, "WHAT?" How am I going to lose the extra 20 lbs of baby weight I still have by FRIDAY! I bought one of those miracle suit swimsuits. It claims to make me look 10 lbs lighter. I guess I'll have to buy another one and wear two at a time to magically lose the other 10 I need to.

Saffron Bakery

Saffron Bakery
Downtown Charleston, SC

I don't normally review restaurants, but what the hell, I'm here with Internet access.

The best part about Saffron is it has parking, no steps and an outdoor bamboo garden. The food is okay, service is okay, and the ambiance is okay. Nothing to complain about, but nothing to rave about either. As expected with this sort of review, prices are very reasonable.

Public Restrooms

The public restroom experience would be so much more interesting if people never evolved past 3. When my 3 year-old goes to the bathroom, she sits, she sings, she makes up songs, she talks to herself. Imagine a public bathroom full of people in stalls all doing that. The upside is if you're standing in line waiting for a stall to become available, you wouldn't have to wonder when one is about to open up. You'd know when someone was done because when they are finished, they'd yell at the top of their lungs, "Somebody come wipe my booooooty!"

Life's Lessons

Every lesson in life I need to know I learned from my 3 year-old. Things like... If someone hurts your feelings, instead of holding it in or confronting them, simply point to them and yell, "You're a stinker-butt bully!" Then go back to playing like nothing happened. If someone hurts a friend, knock them off their high (rocking) horse and scream at them until they apologize or run away. When shopping don't buy anything unless you love it. And if someone tries to give you something you don't want simply say, "I don't love it." If you have trouble falling asleep, lay in bed and say, "poo diarrhea" until you laugh yourself to sleep. If you're on vacation and wake up in the middle of the night, sneak into the kitchen and get cake to quietly eat in bed until you fall back asleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night at home, make sure you wake the whole house up, too. Why spend a lot of money on shoes, when you can spend 90% of the day barefoot. If you have to go in a room where there might be a monster, put on your brave face, take a deep breath, and slowly walk towards the door while repeating, "I'm not afraid of the monster. I'm not afraid of the monster." You have to forgive friends daily with hugs and apologies. It's okay to eat sugar as long as you spend the next hour running around non-stop and squealing in delight. And most importantly, everyone has to share...but you don't have to like it.

Holiday Shopping?

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Dream baby dream

Baby stories are just like dreams. You only care to hear about them if they are your own.

Trip

I need a vacation. I'm ready to go somewhere new where I can be inspired... Or be annoyed by a new set of circumstances. I want to travel, out of my comfort zone.

Follow the Leader

My 3 year-old is constantly yelling, "I'm the leader!" Then she'll cut in front of me an enviably walk slower than I would have.

I think that is how our politicians behave, too. Make a big ta-doo about getting in the leadership position, then do everything 10 times slower than they should.

Gymborpee

(Blog for parental eyes only.)

What chemicals do they treat these baby clothes with that makes them immediately poop once putting them on?

I can pretty much guarantee that my son will have a wayward crap within 7 to 12 minutes of putting him in a new outfit. And I'm not talking about one of those where a dab of poo comes out the side of the diaper, I'm talking about an up the back, over the shoulder poop explosion.

It doesn't make any sense, I even wash the clothes before to make them seem a little broken in, but he still somehow knows.

I can even change him from ruining one new outfit into another brand new outfit, and he still has mysteriously saved enough to completely decimate another one.

Maybe babies are like dogs, they have to poop and pee to mark their territory. It's like, "Hey, wait a minute, that's my onsie! Lemme see it. Yeah, that's mine. That's my signature on the back - poop from the mid-back to left shoulder."

That's why newborns pee and poop all the time. It's not because their tiny little bodies can't hold much milk, it's because to them it's all new clothes! And that's why they sleep all the time. They're exhausted. They think, "Man, I just got here and nobody marked my clothes for me. None of these clothes have stains! I'm going to have to work through the night to mark all these."

There shouldn't be any stool softeners on the market for children. If someone has a constipated child, they shouldn't be heading to CVS or Walgreens, but Carter's or Gymboree. And the more expensive the outfit, the more massive the explosion. For a real bowel eviction, I always spend a few extra bucks on a Janie and Crap outfit.

I'd rather call India

Everyone complains about calling 800 numbers and no one speaks English. I actually prefer it to when you get someone who does speak English and is mildly annoyed that you called.

Instead of some eager worker on the other side of the world hoping to impress you with his English, you get some schmo in a warehouse in Baltimore who is annoyed that he has to stop sexting his girlfriend to take your call.

You can tell by the passive aggressive way they say things like, "You know you can find this on our website." With the undertone of 'gross, this moron is probably calling from a landline.'

Or the line they deliver with utter disdain, "Do you have access to the Internet?"

I like to skeeve them out and say, "No, can you explain what the Internet is?"

Politicks me off

A new law was passed to move in the opposite lane if you see an emergency vehicle (cop, ambulance, etc). I imagine the law was put in effect for the safety of emergency personnel working roadside. Instead of it making things safer, drivers will now nearly run cars off the road trying to switch lanes.

When you have 3 lanes of traffic going 70, and all of a sudden an entire lane has to merge with no warning or drop their speed by 20 mph, it's a recipe for disaster.

It makes me wonder what types of baffoons pass these laws.

Then I read that Romney and Ryan backed proposals to "ban abortion, except in the cases of rape and incest, or when the mother is endangered."

Knucklehead politicians. They should realize this will lead to more women claiming rape or sympathetic doctors claiming more medically necessary abortions. Then there will be someone who gets denied an abortion and dies during labor - and who's responsible? Congress.

I don't expect to elect politicians with vision to predict the future, but it would be nice to elect some with a firm grasp of cause and effect.

And a side note: Politicians, stop using my uterus as a bullet point for your stump speeches. At a minimum, a "free" country should allow for people to control their own medical decisions.

Lies We Love

"We don't collect news to inform us. We collect news to affirm us. It used to be that we disagreed on the solution but agreed in the problem. Now we don't even agree on the problem."

That's a quote from Frank Luntz in a Time article I'm reading. The article is about how humans prefer lies in line with their world views over the truth.

Probably why we watch more comedies than documentaries. Fiction is just more fun than facts.

Not new news, but both Obama and Romney are blatantly calling 'facts' that are indeed fiction. Mainly because Americans don't demand (or expect) the truth from our leaders.

Unfortunate that we have more loyalty to our parties and our leaders than ourselves.

SC DMV - You A Lie

The South Carolina DMV has a unique feature on their website that allows you to see how many people are waiting in line at any given time. I say it's unique because it's wildly inaccurate. It tracks the number of people inside the building currently being serviced, not the swarms of people outside still waiting to get in.

According to their website there are only 4 people here and a 2 minute wait. According to reality, there are now 6 people between me and the door, several behind me and who know how many inside.

I'm not annoyed by the time I'm wasting now, but the time I wasted all week watching & calculating the best time to come here.

Thanks, SC. This is only my 3rd try to get a license. The last try was aborted when my 3 year-old threw up in the parking lot, so I guess this is better scenario.

And why is there not a Starbucks counter here?

Outed by a 4 year-old

My 3 year-old had an older friend over to play today, a 4 year-old girl. They were playing and I gave them some "ice-cream" which is really frozen organic yogurt.

I'm walking off and I hear her friend say, "This isn't ice-cream, it's yogurt."

I thought, man, she just undid all my hard work. I felt like Valerie Plame getting outed. I'll never get her to respect the yogurt again. There is some discussion between them, then my daughter walks into the room where I am and says, "Is this yogurt ice-cream?"

And I say, "Yes!" Brilliant, yogurt-ice-cream, that way they can both be right!

And she looks at it for a minute and says, "Okay." Then she goes out of the room and continues to eat it.

That was a close one.

Blinker Stinkers

What is it with men not wanting to use blinkers? Is it because it's a form of communication that they have trouble with it? "Am I making a left or going straight? Pfft, nobody needs to know my business!"