Hecho en Mexico

Does anyone know of a nice gift for an adorable little girl turning 3 that has at minimum 200 pieces? Preferably each piece would be critical for the toy to function properly so that if even one is lost it will result in a level 10 temper-tantrum and make it necessary for the dad to spend all day searching for something the size of a toothpick. I'm talking about a toy that will eventually reacquaint that same dad with every crevice of his couch only after leading him to discover what's been under his fridge, oven, and dishwasher. Does anyone know of anything like that? Because that is what I am going to get my brother's little girl for her birthday!

Let me back up....

This weekend was LuLu's first birthday party. Nothing big....a small family affair. Of course a small affair when both you and and your husband come from huge families translates into 25 adults in a standing-room-only kitchen that overlooks 7 little boys fighting over 4 trains while 3 little girls cry about who has what balloon. And smack dab in the center of it all is LuLu completely unaware that this entire spectacle is being painted as a party for her when in reality it's only purpose is to erase any sense of parental guilt that would be associated with acknowledging that a one year old has NO idea what their birthday is. Trust me. I tried to disregard the need for a big party this year. But 72 hours before the minuscule "grandparents only" dinner I planned, the intense feeling of motherly failure set in. Needless to say the next three days were a whirlwind of picking out streamers (that no one would notice), sending out invitations (that no one would read), and making a cake (that no one would eat.) So to those of you who thought I was kidding about shaping a Costco cake into a "1" - I wasn't. I'm no fool. This is diet season and even though everyone will "ooh and ahh" over a cake, no one is going near that thing unless it involves a photo opportunity! But the same guilt that had me sending out an Evite with only 3 days notice also had my gut wrenching at the thought of not making Lu's very first birthday cake myself. Of course by "myself" I mean having "Amber" supervise me while Betty Crocker and I relive the good old days when Cherry Chip cake reigned supreme and it counted as "baking" if you add two eggs and some vegetable oil to a mix and stirred.

Anyway, you know you have great families when you can pack a house on a Saturday night on very short notice. You also know that your twenties are a thing of the past when everyone around you has Saturday nights open. (Hmmm....how do I want to look at that one??) There was a perfect little crowd to sing Happy Birthday while Lu stared at her mini cake because, after all, she didn't want to eat a bite either. How was that even possible? My girl is a tank and she eats everything! Everything, that is, except my Cherry Chip masterpiece. Oh well. By this point all of the little cousins were wanting Lu to open her presents. Really what they wanted was to tear every last gift apart before Lu even set eyes on the giant pile of pink paper and glittery bows. But I'm so much wiser than I used to be....I now use this fact to my advantage! The best way to get presents opened fast and save everyone a big bore is to tell all the three year olds in the room that they can "help." 3 minutes.....done. Perfect. I kinda feel awkward for even allowing people to give my daughter presents when are already blessed in so many ways! But seeing as they all have good taste and it was mostly a pile of clothes I was able to let that fact slide for a few minutes. And just as I began to hold up the cutest pair of mini skinny jeans....I saw it.

No one else probably even noticed. But I did. I saw pink plastic vaguely in the shape of a barrel. I saw a grin on my brother's face and a glisten in his eye. And then in one quick swoop.....play...food...everywhere. 100 pieces of plastic play food to be exact. Ohhhhh......he had been waiting to do this for so long!!! With little cardboard boxes of cereal flying past tiny cans of corn my brother proudly shouted, "Everyone get some food! Play with it in this room. Play with it that room. Play with it all over the house!" Okay....Okay...I may have had this coming. Last year I bought his daughter the very same barrel of food along with a shopping cart for Christmas. It was an unassuming gift. My brother, however, likes to remind me that he spends every night picking up plastic french fries and miniature milk cartons that are all inscribed, "Hecho en Mexico." I keep telling him that at least it's better than China! Regardless, my gift was a gesture of love. His gift was a gesture of war. It's on Tim.....it's ON!

When in doubt.....distract with candy!

"Don't love it mom....."

I've Got My Eye on You, Valentine!

Well I was supposed to go to Bible study this morning but at the last minute Emery decided his digestive system wasn't in the mood. I don't think anyone needs any more details than that. You're welcome! In any case it left me some time to blog, but before I could get started I thought I would jazz it up a little with a new design. I have a confession to make. I really don't enjoy designing things for myself, but every once in awhile I just get sick of looking at the same thing. You would think that because design is my profession I would be all over trying to make this blog my calling card. But like a landscaper with weeds in his own yard, when I am all done with my real work the last thing I want to do is another few hours for fun. So instead, all you will ever get from me is a few 20-minute spruce ups here or there and I am going to consider that a victory!

On to more important things.....Yey for it being February! I don't know why I love this month so much. I think it stems back to childhood when we had those special Valentine's Day parties in school before parents went all crazy PC and gluten free. Remember when you got to make a little mailbox for your desk or when your parents took you to the store to pick out the perfect box of "insert cartoon here" valentines? The cool kids always gave away those lifesaver ones or the kind you could poke a sucker through. Not me though. I just got the plain old square ones with the perforated edges and flimsy envelopes. Wait a minute, I don't think it was really as stress free as I initially remembered it being now that I'm forcing a mental trip back. I totally forgot that just a very few (maybe 3) of those little squares were more rectangle shaped and slightly bigger than the others. Holy social pressure for an 8 year old!! Do you give your crush hoping he'll grasp the subtle enormity of your romantic gesture, or play it safe and give it to a friend knowing you may never ever experience 3rd grade love? And why did the creep in the corner give me a big one?! That can't be good! Furthermore, I think someone needs to intervene with the writers of those cards and explain that, "I've got my eye on you, Valentine" is not really a great written sentiment. Aside from the fact it's not possible that there was ever 8 people I wanted to say that to in my class, it's really just stalker creepy from the get-go.

Okay, scratch that. It wasn't Valentine's day that made me love February. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was just because that meant January was over and I think you all know how I feel about January. Looking back, God must have been on my side during my last pregnancy because as much as I wanted to wish away every single day minute second of being overdue with Luelle, it was all worth it when she was born on February 1st instead of January 29th like we had originally expected. I checked into the hospital on the 31st around 6:00 pm and remember staring at that clock willing myself to make it six more hours so she could have a February birthday. Truthfully, that's not how it happened. I mean I did check in at 6:00, but willing myself to do anything has never been successful and Lu, in reality, picked her own birthday. For example, I also willed myself not to gain more than 20 pounds during pregnancy. Without going into too many details let's just say that was about as successful as the time I thought I could do a level 3 Jillian Michaels video on my first try because I "used to be in shape" and I was sure that there was no way possible any of my endurance had left me after an extended cardio hiatus. Apparently working out 2 years ago doesn't do much for you now. Who knew?

Speaking of loosing baby weight, while I was pregnant I was positive that my postnatal diet was going to start the very second that little girl joined us in the real world. Well that was an epic failure too!! Not only did I spend more time looking at the hospital menu than my own daughter in the first 5 minutes after her birth, but I ordered a hamburger and fries like it was today's Fresh Catch and at any moment a white gloved waiter was going to walk in and say "I'm sorry ma'am, the hamburger is no longer available this evening." I don't think (unless you've experienced it first hand) that you can even begin to contemplate what that first food tastes like after having a baby. At that very moment I would have bet all my money that Bobby Flay was having a Throw-Down in the Providence Cafeteria and I was the lucky chosen recipient of his gourmet entree.

Why can I not write without going on a tangent? What I was trying to get to is that this is LuLu's birthday week and we have a little party planned for her that I am trying to throw together very quickly. Being a second child, she's not going to have the grand bash that her brother did before her. Really the guest list just includes enough faces to fill in the background of some 1st birthday pictures so I have something to send to the yearbook her Senior year. It was originally even a smaller party than that before "Amber" was dang near appalled and at least convinced me to try and make a cake. So that's what's on my schedule for tomorrow. Well truthfully....by "make a cake" I mean buy a Costco cake, shape it into a "1" and refrost it before anyone is the wiser. Eat your heart out Pamela Susan... :)


Have a great day!!

The crazy-eyed Birthday Girl!

Surgeon General's Warning...

Well....it's been awhile. Do you know why? Because it's January and that's kind of like a giant "Monday" for the year. And who wants to do anything on a Monday except just try and get through it? No offense to anyone with January birthdays, but this month is lame. And I'm dealing with all of the things that parents (okay.....lazy parents like me) put off forever. Like potty training and selecting a preschool. In all honestly I'm only potty training because I'm selecting a preschool. Those places make it crystal clear that they are not in the business of bathroom tutorials. Noted. There went plan A!

There were a few redeeming parts to this month including a trip to Sunriver, a well deserved party in honor of my husband who managed to pass a grueling exam while simultaneously supporting a family and raising two kids, and a trip through wine country yesterday. Sadly it was yesterday's trip, though, where I was (once again) reminded that 21 does not last forever. But at least I was reminded in a blaze of glory! Of course that was followed by six hours of bargaining with the Good Lord above to let me be anywhere (and I mean even potty training in a public restroom) instead of laying on my bed cautiously trying to decipher whether my next sip of water in was going to be the first sip of water out. To save you the suspense, I didn't really get sick. As "Amber" wisely pointed out, the difference between 31 and 21 is we now know when to retire our tasting glasses. Well that and the fact that we now use tasting glasses and not red plastic cups. I think my internal cut off valve was about two tastings behind yesterday though. It's not shocking that I'm a little rusty after 2 kids. We all know pregnancy and alcohol don't mix. But the Surgeon General should just be honest and expand that warning to say something like this:

GOVERNMENT WARNING: According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. Also, if you think you are going to be tossing one back a mere 9 months after conception, think again! Get used to it ladies, between nursing and sleep deprivation you are NEVER going to enjoy a sip of beer or wine again. And when you are out of the newborn stage and decide to temp fate by having a full glass of anything, nature will send you a cruel reminder that drinking is a thing of your past in the form of a three year old who will be abnormally wide eyed at 5 am with a "no mercy" look on his face and a solid 12-18 hours of planned activities aimed at testing the upper echelons of your parenting skills.

For real, I'm not much of a drinker anyway. It's virtually impossible to be a lush when you have kids unless you are doing something really really wrong! But when my friend Shannon planned an entire wine country outing complete with a driver and no kids, I eagerly signed up! Do you want to know what I really learned this time? I learned 2 things:

1. In my next life I want to be a limo driver! Sure it's not the most glamorous job in the world but talk about easy! After the first two wineries there is NOTHING our driver could have done that we wouldn't have written off as hilarious like he was the next coming of Steve Carell and destined to be a Paul Rudd movie. Take for instance two things that we literally high fived the kid for: (1) Locking the keys in the limo and (2) telling a bunch of women who are wrestling with coming into our 30's and maintaining our youth/figures that we ate more than any group he has ever seen! Do you think his tip got compromised for these things at all? Heck no! Instead he practically got painted as Superman for being able to deliver us home safely (hey drunk ladies....that's what he's paid to do!) For real...the guy only had one job and he locked the keys in the car! And after he was able to jimmy it open with a hanger that was in the trunk (has this happened before?) we actually justified the experience by saying it gave us time to "enjoy a light lunch." Ummm....Outsmarted.....by a kid!

2. The Nanny Diaries is a horrible movie. After arriving home my amazing husband didn't even bat an eyelash at letting me ride out the rest of the night in my dark bedroom regretting the fact that I didn't eat even more of the classy cheez-it limo snacks! Unfortunately for me, The Nanny Diaries was playing on a loop on E! and I couldn't muster the energy to find the remote allowing me to watch something better like House Hunters. That wasn't Scarlett Johansson's best movie...actually, that really wasn't anyone's best movie.

So long story short, I won't be drinking for a long....long time! At least until I forget the pain of yesterday. And seeing how tomorrow is LuLu's first birthday and I haven't forgotten the pain of her birth yet (just say no to Fentanyl!), I don't anticipate picking up a wine glass anytime soon.

Happy Birthday LuluBelle!! It's going to be a great week!

Old Young Friends

That guy is thinking, "You break it, you buy it!"

Anne Amie Vineyards. Gorgeous!

Kelly was a trooper with her mint water! Can't wait to meet baby O'Connor!

Cheese Graters go in the Back!

Why...oh why don't men instinctively know how to correctly load dishwashers? I mean....I am beyond blessed that I have a husband who has no problem helping with the dishes but, really? I would say that it's not rocket science, but it actually is! It took me a whole year of living in this house to figure out exactly how every sippy cup, cheese grater, dinner plate and even those pesky Baja Fresh cups could fit into that thing in a pre-ordained spot without a speck of wasted space. Lord forbid I don't maximize 42¢ of dish detergent in every single load! I don't know why this bothers me so much considering the fact that there are times (embarrassingly) that my solution to a forgotten load of laundry in the washer is to re-wash it with an entire cup load of detergent hoping that musky smell that develops on wet clothes after 8 hours of being ignored might disappear. In any case, I let out an (annoyed) sigh every time I see I see a cheese grater in the center when according to my "maximum capacity" mental map it belongs in the back corner!!

So I bet you can't guess what I've been doing this morning? Cleaning! We're headed out to Sunriver tomorrow for some much needed R&R and there is nothing I hate more than coming home to a messy house. (That and I thought it would be nice if our house-sitter didn't show up to a place with string cheese wrappers littering the counter.) Actually, there is something I hate more than a messy house. Packing. I. HATE. PACKING. I sucked at it when I just had to pack for myself. I reeeeeaaaaaaaally suck at it when I have to do it for myself and 2 kids. I get so caught up on things like making sure I have a backpack that will hold everything for 2 kids in case we go on a hike (that we will never actually go on) that in my distraction I forget things like socks, shampoo, diapers, and critical toys that will result in heartbreaking crocodile tears if not produced immediately!

Things I am excited about for this trip:

• Time with my husband! It's been 5 years since he hasn't been in school or studying for the dreaded CPA exam while working 50-60 hour weeks on top of it all. Welcome back babe!!
• Snow. Rain blows......snow is completely acceptable.
• Bar-B-Que Chips. I don't actually like Bar-B-Que chips but something about Sunriver makes me crave them. It's random. It's like when you go into certain stores and no matter what you have to go to the bathroom. Or is that just me?

Things I am not looking forward to:

• Getting there. It's ironic that I love to go to snow, but hate to drive through snow. I bet Luke is actually looking a little less forward to that part than me. I'm no prize to drive unless you are fond of someone sitting next to you holding their breath and scrunching their eyes in the most obvious, "You're going to kill us" way ever!
  
• Putting my half potty-trained 3 year old in snow bibs and praying he tells me when he has to go. Recipe for disaster???! I think so.
• Jillian Micahel's workouts while on vacation. This probably wouldn't be necessary if not for the Bar-B-Que Chips. What a horrible cycle!

Other than that, I better stop procrastinating and start organizing. Hopefully I will have some pictures next week! I know you are all crazy with anticipation....

If You're an Elf....

Am I the only one who can't even stop to take a breath in this last week before Christmas? It's exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time. I love it...I hate it.....I love it....I hate it....I love it. Regardless, I need more caffeine! And speaking of caffeine I learned a HUGE lesson this week! Take note: Pepsi Max is NOT the same as Pepsi One!!! I was three cans into my morning last Sunday when I looked at Luke with bloodshot eyes telling him I was pretty confident that I could make lunch, gets the kids dressed, finish my Christmas shopping, write a blog, and complete World 2 on Wii Mario Brothers before noon if I could just get rid of the body shakes that I seemed to have developed.

Luke: "Jenny....what have you been drinking?"

Me: "Pepsi Max! My dad always has it at his house and I like it!"

Luke: "No....your dad has Pepsi One at his house."

Me: "Same thing!"

Luke: "Ummm....it's not the same at all actually. The "max" in Pepsi Max stands for "Maximum Caffeine"

A quick confirmation by Google assured me that my new beverage selection has more caffeine than Mt. Dew and I realized it was going to be a long afternoon! A long afternoon for Luke that it is. Can you imagine having to deal with me shaking high on caffeine for 5 hours with the only thing to look forward to is a mega energy crash where my attitude might just give him an early taste of my menopause years? Poor guy. It just occurred to me in the last few seconds that that is probably why he offered to mow the lawn on a 35 degree day with rain blowing sideways in his face. Now I'm wishing I hadn't revisited that moment. Luke says a lot more with his actions than his words. Wise fellow.

In any case, I don't normally drink 3 cans of soda a day so please save your lectures about how you once got an email saying Diet Coke can make a rusty nail shiny and that Snopes.com actually confirmed it. But I've never been a coffee drinker and my to-do list is a mile long until I'm ready for the main event this Saturday. And I really need some sort of legal drug to get me through the movie "Polar Express" for the 892nd time while I re-wrap all of the presents whose bows somehow made it into LuLu's mouth while I was busy begging Emery to give the movie "Rudolph" a try instead. So if this is the worst of my vices than I'm going to consider that a victory. And in the meantime I'll save my bottle deposits to pay for Emery's therapy when his world someday comes crashing down as he realizes that there is not, in fact, a real Polar Express train that might at any minute show up outside his window. The last part isn't even a joke.....he looks for it a lot. It's sad and sweet all at the same time.

I did have one day off last week where I didn't have anything on the calendar so instead of being smart and laying low, I called my mom (who works downtown) and told her I was bored! "Come meet me for lunch!" she said, an offer which I hesitantly accepted. Now this may not seem like much of a story yet, but imagine if you will, me downtown at Pioneer Place with a stroller-confined infant and a 3 year old (insisting he can walk himself) who has never seen anything more flashy than the Christmas decorations that hang from Target's ceiling over the $1 section. Can you even begin to wrap your mind around how big of a field trip this was for him? I'll spare you all of the details and just tell you that at one point I had to physically pull him out of the Pioneer Place fountain after I turned my back for a split second to check on Lu. It was a proud moment and one of those in which I completely disregard the 700 people shopping around me and screamed with full force, "EMERY GET OUT OF THE FOUNTAIN!" only to realize that shoppers were literally peering over the 2nd and 3rd floor balconies to see who had just lost their nomination for Mother-of-the-Year. It's me people....and don't worry! I lost my chance at that title on January 2nd when I took Emery grocery shopping in his Buzz Lightyear pajamas in the middle of the day because I was too tired to get him dressed and instead took advantage of the fact that he doesn't have any concept of personal pride just yet.

The fountain incident should have been a clue that I was in over my head, but ignoring this obvious red flag I dredged on towards Santa whose gigantic chair was perched in a Winter Wonderland conveniently located right next to the new H&M. Of course instead of Santa we were greeted with a gigantic sign letting us know that the big guy was unavailable because he was visiting sick children at the Hospital. I know it's wrong to be angry about that, but a 3 year who doesn't understand "pride" most definitely won't accept "charity" as a reason for a broken Santa promise on a moment's notice. I needed to think quick and come up with some sort of lesson that both delivered a new Santa while simultaneously reinforcing the concept of selflessness! Interrupting my train of thought, though, was a gigantic elf who told us Santa would be back in 4 hours as he handed us the prices for the portrait packages as some sort of sad attempt to offer a consolation to a clearly upset toddler. Ummmm....2 things wrong with this:

1. If you're and "elf" and you're taller than me....you're not an elf.
2. What am I supposed to do with a price sheet for 4 hours expect mull over how I had student loans for 10 years that I could have paid off by buying a laser printer and hiring some guy with a white beard to pose with kids for $34.95 a pop. ($49.95 if you want a CD)

Fast forward to the good news: It turns out Santa wasn't at the hospital at all! We found him at Macy's across the street a mere 5 minutes later! Just what are the odds of that?!?!?!

Here is my precious little guy posing with a Santa
who doesn't care about sick children:

Where Does Santa Want to Go to College?

Okay, it's been awhile since I've done a blog post and no...it's not because I am fading. There is actually one very specific reason I have not blogged. I'll let you guess why. Motherhood? Nope. Holiday shopping? Nope. Sick Kids? Nope. Working? Nope. I can see you're never going to guess so I'm just going to tell you. It's because of the game "Bejeweled." You know how it's always the small things that creep into your life and grow unnoticed until they become all consuming and keep you up until midnight? That is what this stupid iPod app has become! Bigger than the 100 year rivalry between the Ducks and the Beavers is the quest to have the highest score on Bejeweled in my household! Now by no means is this game new to me. I've been playing it for years at work while I was supposed to be doing something more productive and Facebook was growing old. But I happened to download it into my husbands iPod the other day because I am sick of Yahtzee and needed a new waiting room time waster for all of those Well-Child visits that seem more frequent than Emery telling me he has to go potty. (Actually they are more frequent.....when will this kid understand that he needs to tell me when he has to go????) In any case, Luke somehow shoved his $1,000,000 iPod Blackjack dream aside and decided to give my little game a go. And curse him....he BEATS me every time!! He has now made it is personal goal in life to make sure I have not a single spot on the top 5 scores and he is closing in on complete success. He even caught me Googleing "How to win at Bejeweled" which by the way is a complete waste of time unless you can't figure out that 4 in a row is better than 3 in a row. So anyway...I am in Bejeweled detox now and returning to my blog is baby step 1. My name is Jenny and (this week) I am a Bejeweledaholic...

So when I have not been using the Disney Channel as a babysitter so I can figure out how to get past level 9, I have been spending the rest of my time saying things like this:

• "Emery, stop touching the tree"
• "Emery, Santa saw you do that! Leave your sister alone!"
• "Emery, Christmas trains aren't meant to haul waffles across the living room!"

You get the idea. As you can probably guess we got our Christmas tree this week! I think I need to do myself a favor and just stop building memories in my mind before they actually occur. This is what I thought getting our Christmas tree would be like:

The whole family would be bundled up in our winter coats finishing our last round of, "The 12 Days of Christmas" as we pull into a hidden away snow covered tree farm where every Noble Fir sparkles in perfection! Just as we turn the corner with Emery screaming, "That one! That one!" a stranger would offer to take a family picture of all of us in front of our gorgeous tree that would become my new Facbook profile because everyone was caught smiling perfectly and looking the same direction for once! Then Luke would saw our tree down and pick it up one handed while we follow him to the barn to pay and enjoy some delicious hot chocolate and homemade cookies. Emery would get to see Santa and declare he doesn't need anything and, in fact, wants to donate some of his toys so his parents will stop tripping on them. There would be even more postcard picture opportunities all while some high school kids tie our tree to the car for free because they want to become Eagle Scouts and they are fulfilling their community service requirements.

Here is how it really happened:

"Shoot...am I lost?" Why am I passing 9 tree farms on the way to a tree farm? "Emery....put your coat back on! Is this the right place?" Then we took Emery to see the Santa that looked A-MAZING on the internet but in real life looked more like a high school student who wanted to become an Eagle Scout and and needed to fulfill his community service requirements. Oh well, Emery's only 3 and still fooled pretty easily. Off to find the perfect tree!

Luke: "Jenny...this is going to take forever, I don't want to drag a tree for miles with you following behind me with one kid on your back and another who insists he can do everything BY HIMSELF! Can we just buy a pre-cut one?"

Me: "Sure. Whatever. How about that one" (pointing to literally the closest thing to Santa's barn)

Luke: "Sold. Load her up!"

Emery: "We didn't get a tree!! Are we leaving?"

Me: "Yes we did.....go stand by it and I'll take a picture"

Emery: "That is our tree laying on the ground?"

Me: "Go stand by it so I can get a picture!"

Saleslady: "You guys can take a picture pretending to cut it down if you want...."

Me: "Luke....go kneel by the tree!"

Luke: "I'm not pretending to cut down a tree! We'll do pictures at home Jenny!"

Here are some shots of the Schultz Clan picking out our perfect (pre-cut) Christmas Tree:

"Ho, Ho, Ho little boy! Seniors 2011!"

Santa was a little too busy to decorate the tree next to him? Maybe we could have bought it already in the stand and saved some sweat!

After all of our hard work!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Wasted Time I'll never Get Back...

Wow! I didn't know food was such a heated topic! I mean, I guess I did because I can hardly contain my own eye rolls when the soap boxes start to come out, but it's obvious that all of you have all been put through the same ringer as me and I'm dizzy! Kudos to everyone for having their own beliefs and sticking to them, just quit sharing them with me! Kidding :) I know that I mentioned that I try to buy organic as it becomes more readily available. After reading back what I wrote in a heated moment I should clarify that statement as not to be on my own soap box. I should have said, "I shop organic if I happen to be on that side of the store." Realistically, if I make it all the way over to paper goods toting two kids (one of which insists on walking by himself but gets distracted by every randomly displayed Pez dispenser along the way...thank you Fred Meyer) and I see a pile of Tostitos chips, I have no problem qualifying that as a vegetable to save the long walk back to produce. I'm no saint, I'm in survival mode!

Besides milk, another thing I have always tried to buy organic is baby food. I'll admit that at one point (when Emery was about 6 months old) I too fell victim to a smug attitude when I proudly announced my purchasing habits to a group of fellow moms who all looked at me with their mouths wide open. I knew they would be impressed! "You don't make your own baby food Jenny?" WHAT?? I CAN'T WIN! I don't think I was being asked that because people were questioning my food choices. I think they were just astonished that I hadn't figured out how to use my blender on boiled sweet potatoes. Well guess what? I don't own a blender. For real I don't! Maybe I should have made that a priority 6 years ago when I was toting a laser gun around Macy's feeling slightly entitled and still awkwardly greedy picking out my own wedding presents. I own a Magic Bullet. It's something I convinced my husband we HAD to have after many a late nights watching three giddy strangers drink margaritas while their overly enthusiastic host made guacamole in 3 seconds. I truly thought this might be the key to me hosting my very own Mexican fiesta someday! I'll save you the suspense and tell you that all I got was $50 worth of broken dreams and guacamole that looked more like halved avocados because it actually was just that.....halved avocados. That thing takes 3 seconds like it takes me 3 seconds to get ready for a night out on the town! Actually, it probably does only take me 3 seconds to get ready since I don't have too many people to impress anymore and by "town" I mean Sherwood. Jenny 1. Magic Bullet 0.

By some miracle last week I decided to dust that thing off and give baby food making another try. Really my "miracle" came in the form of a $70/month baby food bill. Those little jars add up! So with the best of intentions I bought 2 sweet potatoes, boiled them, and Magic Bulleted away. I forgot to mention the very important steps where I Googled "how do I make baby food?" and the 20 minutes after where I watched YouTube videos made by women with even more discretionary time than myself. In any case my research paid off because it worked!! I made 6 little Glad containers of sweet potatoes and I was gleaming! So intense was my satisfaction that I started going through my freezer looking for anything I could puree. Peas? Pureed. Carrots? Pureed. I just kept going! I even stopped to consider whether or not you can puree meatballs because those things have been hogging valuable freezer space for too long! (Sidenote: Next person to invite me to a potluck...guess what I'm bringing?) By the time I was done I had a whole freezer shelf full of homemade baby food! I was high on life right up until I went to Costco and came home toting bulk sized staples that all require freezing and, alas, had no more freezer space. Stupid baby food! What am I supposed to do now? Where will I keep my spinach and mozzarella raviolis until I find them in 8 months, wonder if they are good, and throw them out??

I bet you thought this story was going somewhere? Joke is on you! The only thing this story leads to is me telling you that I spent my entire morning reorganizing my fridge and freezer. Exciting stuff huh? So in an (organic) nutshell....you just wasted 5 minutes reading this and I wasted even more time writing it. Happy Wednesday!

Jenny

PS.... I really do want to say thanks to everyone who keeps reading this blog. Really mom...I love you too! I don't pretend to be a writer, just a self published amateur complainer who had enjoyed reconnecting with a lot of people who seem to be in the same boat :) We're all in this together right?