The most amazing tofu tacos you've probably never had

I know what you're thinking...tofu? BARF!!! Is this chick for real? But before you click out of this post and take me off of your blogroll forever, please just hear me out. These tofu tacos are so ridiculously good you'll want to slap your husband (okay, so you'll want to slap him anyways, for reasons other than tofu tacos, but this gives you a valid reason).

It's extremely unusual for me to post recipes on my blog because as you all know, I suck at all things domestic, but on the rare occasion when I do actually hit one out of the park, I figure it's only fair that I share my success and wisdom with others. Sure, there may be some of you out there who've achieved successful careers, nice homes, fancy cars, vacation condos on tropical islands that I can't even pronounce, but I can cook tofu. We all have our special talents and do the best with what we are given. 

I'll admit that a block of tofu straight out of the package looks pretty unappetizing (AKA pretty damn gross). It kinda reminds me of a giant Magic Clear Eraser but it's wet, slimy and crumbles like blue cheese when you touch it. I haven't had a chance to clean my tub with it yet to see if it has the same cleaning capabilities as a MCE, but I'll get back to you on that one later. 

My husband and I discovered the awesomeness that is tofu tacos at this amazing, trendy restaurant in Bend (which will remain nameless because I would die of embarrassment if they saw my photos which are pitiful compared to their artistic culinary masterpieces). We loved these silly little tofu tacos so much that we were going daily for awhile. Not only did we start to feel a little stalkerish about going to the same restaurant and ordering the same food item every single day, but dining out really starts to add up. We needed to figure out a way to make them ourselves so we could save some money and completely pig out on them without judgment (e.g. someone taking secret cell phone photos of us stuffing our pie holes with tacos) in the privacy of our own home. 

Although we have no idea what the recipe or ingredients are in the tofu tacos at our favorite restaurant (my husband first suggested that we should ask them for their recipe but I was like, "Um, babe, we eat here everyday. Do you really think they're going to just hand us their super top secret recipe so we can copy it and stop spending money at their restaurant? Probably not!"), so we decided to try our own knock off tofu tacos.  Although they don't look anywhere near as pretty as their tacos, the knock offs turned out incredible and now my husband and I are literally gorging ourselves right into the next pant size.

Ingredients you will need for the tacos:
white corn tortillas
olive oil 
tofu (I bought two firm blocks because I wanted leftovers)
cajun seasoning (I use Weber N'Orleans Cajun Seasoning)
lime juice
Salad/spinach greens or cabbage or both for the topping (I like both but my hubby hates cabbage so I leave it off)
cilantro for the topping
jalapeno peppers for the topping (optional)

Ingredients you will need for the spicy chipotle sauce: 
1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce  (you wont use an entire can unless you want to set your mouth on fire, which I did the first time I made this sauce....lesson learned)
3/4 to 1 cup of mayo (didn't measure out very accurately..told ya I sucked at cooking)
1/2 cup of sour cream (feel free add more if you want)
1/4 tsp of minced garlic (I may have added a couple of these as I love garlic)
lime juice to taste
lemon juice to taste

Directions for the tofu tacos:
*Drain the tofu, blot well with paper towels, cut blocks in half width wise into two equal pieces and then cut into smaller cubes
*Add cajun seasoning into a plastic bag or container. Squirt tofu squares with some lime juice. Shake cajun seasoning onto tofu until it's well coated
*Cook tofu on a skillet over medium heat with a little olive oil until it starts to turn slightly crispy
*Warm corn tortillas on a frying pan with a small amount of oil and heat on both sides
*Cut up cilantro, salad greens/spinach, cabbage, and jalapenos and set aside

Directions for the spicy chipotle sauce:
Add mayo, sour cream, minced garlic, 1/2 can of adobo peppers, and a few squirts of lemon and lime juice. Blend in blender (I use my NutriBullet) until smooth. I will admit, I adjusted amounts until it tasted good to me (adding more lemon or lime for example) so there is no right or wrong way to make this sauce. I know, I'm super duper helpful.

Once you warm the corn tortillas on the skillet (a couple of min on each side usually) with a little oil, it's time to arrange your tacos. There is no exact science to this process. I put about 4-5 cubes of tofu in each taco, add some salad greens, cilantro and the spicy chipotle sauce on top. My final step is to squirt some additional lime juice on top (I love lime juice if you haven't noticed). You can also add some freshly sliced up jalapenos on top, but I find these tacos are spicy and hot enough without them so do what you wish but definitely have some water nearby because these tacos have quite the kick.

I know, I know, you're super jealous of my mad food photography skills, along with my fancy puke green fine china--courtesy of Walmart

I promise you that these babies taste so much better than they look. And I should probably mention that I added WAY more spicy chipotle sauce than a normal person would (hence the reason why my mouth was on fire). You probably wont want to start with this much sauce and had I not dumped a crapton of sauce all over the tacos, you actually would've been able to see what they looked like underneath (sorry). I told you there's a very good reason why I don't blog about cooking. I promise these tacos are good, and before you know it, you'll be buying the large boxes of tofu at Costco.

I took my four kids to the museum alone and lived to tell about it

Monday was a school holiday (President's Day) and my kids were bugging me bright and early to "take them somewhere fun".  Of course they typically choose crazy stuff that's not really possible for me to do on my own with three kids and an infant, like some type of skating, the local water park (the younger kids don't swim that great yet and I'll be damned if I'm going to squeeze my glazed donut filled hiney into a swimsuit in February), glacier luging, etc, you get the idea. I'm not a big fan of venturing out with all four kids alone, so I don't do it very often. It's tiring, stressful, and anxiety provoking (just the mere thought of it makes me bust out in the flop sweats with puffy hives).

For Christmas this year my dad bought our family a year long membership to the High Desert Museum, at my request since the thought of more toys coming into this tiny, overcrowded, cluttered rental house briefly turned me into the robot that goes haywire on RoboCop. Unfortunately Bend doesn't have a children's museum, or OMSI like we had in Portland, but the HDM is still packed full of fun, and the perfect place to spend an afternoon.  Plus, I was feeling a little guilty that I had only used our family membership once since Christmas, since we've been buried under 10,000 feet of snow and haven't ventured out much these past couple of months. So I told the kids we were going to the museum, and that was final.

It took me about two hours to get all four kids ready to go. Not even joking. Two freaking hours. By the time I got everyone locked and loaded into the car, I was already completely wiped out and dying for a nap. I was spoiled with having older, independent children before Seanie Mac was born. I thought my infant/toddler days were long gone and all I really had to worry about before we left the house was that the kids had brushed their teeth, were all wearing pants, and went to the bathroom so we didn't have to pull over to pee a million times along the way.

Now that Seanie Mac is here we had to wait for his morning nap to end (because taking a cranky, non rested baby on an outing on purpose is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, you know it isn't going to end well), feed him, clean him up, change his diaper, then change his diaper again because he took a dump as soon as I put a fresh diaper on him, etc. It seriously never ends with this kid. This is the same baby who almost always dumps the dog's water dish all over himself just seconds before we're ready to leave (or toilet water...he doesn't discriminate; he loves both).

I was really nervous that the kids were going to conspire against me and all hell was going to break loose and I'd have to use my one phone call from jail to call my husband at work to come bail me out, but to my surprise, the kids were all super duper well behaved, and no, I promise, I didn't drug them before we left.

We walked around the museum, checked out the exhibits (even though they really hadn't changed much since the last time we visited), the kids played in the kiddie area, and we even walked through the gift shop without anyone throwing a tantrum or breaking something, although my oldest started to get a little squirrely over an overpriced stuffed horse, but I held strong because if I bought her the horse, I'd have to say yes to the stuffed rodents that my boys were holding up and waving just inches from my face. Besides, I'm pretty sure we already have some rodents living behind our kitchen stove.

A shot of all four of them looking at the camera and I didn't even have to bribe them

 

Seanie was irritated that the stroller suddenly stopped moving 

 

A pathetic attempt at a selfie...we really could've used a selfie stick! 

 

Peanut loved this volunteer dude...he talked his ear off 

 

How I eat during PMS week

 

Seanie the rock climber. 

What do you mean your ten month old can't rock climb yet?

Kidding, he's still on the ground

 

I'm really happy I decided to take them out of the house and let them burn off some steam instead of yelling at them from the couch to be quiet while they ignore me and act like wild dingos at a rave.  Plus this gave me some confidence to know that not only could I do it, but that maybe I should be doing this kind of stuff more often. Of course you know what this means!! The next time I take them to the museum alone, I'll turn my back for one second and Peanut and Mahlon will end up falling into the snake pit. But at least I can always look back and say, "Remember that one time, when I took them to the museum and it was a total success?"  Yeah, I'll always have that.

The best update I could ever ask for!

 After some recent unflattering stories were written about me, I was feeling a little down. I started to reflect on everything that's happened over the last few weeks and felt very overwhelmed by all of the sudden attention. Part of me wondered if I did the right thing by publishing the RSVP post, not having any idea that it would spread like wildfire across the World Wide Web.

I needed a break from the non stop media requests and numerous messages flooding my inbox, and decided to step back and enjoy some much needed downtime with my family.  On Saturday my husband and I made our weekly Costco run, and stopped to pick up some pizza on the drive home. While he was inside waiting for the food, I opened up my email, and innocently clicked on one of my emails from a reader titled, "Don't worry about replying".  As I read through her message, tears began cascading down my face.

*I asked her for permission to post this, as I know all too well how it feels to lose your sense of privacy. I did leave out their names in order to protect their privacy as I promised I'd keep her anonymous:

Hi Kristen, 

I saw your post about the birthday party fiasco shared through Facebook.  My child had received an invite from a classmate we didn't know, and I wasn't planning to go to the party.  We've been horribly busy, and I've been under the weather for weeks, and it was scheduled shortly before Halloween.  

Also, I was pretty sure she only got the invite because class rules state that if you bring party invitations to school, everyone in class must receive an invitation.   After seeing your post, I decided to make time, buy a gift and take my child to the party.  

 I'm so glad we did.  She was the only kid from his entire class that came. In fact, she was the only child besides his siblings. He was so happy when she arrived for the party at the restaurant (you should have seen his face!) and they played together the whole time.  If you hadn't shared your post, he would have had the same experience as your son.   

Thanks for being brave.

Suddenly I knew I had absolutely done the right thing by sharing M's story, because this is all we were ever wanting to happen in the first place. My story was not about placing blame on anyone, as I'm far from perfect. It's not about nit picking over the party details, the decorations, the location, etc. It's about raising awareness that birthdays are a very important event for a child, and if we can take just one second out of our busy lives to reach out to the person throwing the party, it could make a big difference in the outcome (as you read above).

I thought at first when I wrote M's story, that the main issue was the lack of RSVP'ing, but I received so many heartbreaking stories saying, "We don't even do parties anymore because no one shows up".  I may be showing my age by writing this, but when I was a child, birthday parties were a very big deal.  Perhaps it's because we didn't have cartoons available to stream 24 hours a day, realistic video games, smart phones (or even cell phones for that manner), tablets, etc. Social media wasn't even a phrase yet. We had Halloween, Christmas, Saturday morning cartoons, and Masterpiece Theatre (admit it, you jumped for joy whenever this came on).

Some of the comments I received mentioned that M's party looked really lame and their child wouldn't of wanted to attend either.  This makes me really sad to think that we have to throw lavish, celebrity worthy birthday bashes in order for our children to attend.  It makes me wonder, "Are birthday parties becoming obsolete?" Are kids so desensitized from all of the above forms of entertainment, that birthday parties aren't such a big deal anymore?

And with that, I truly hope that M's story starts a birthday movement.  Let's bring back the RSVP and birthday parties, as I really think there are two issues here (lack of RSVPing which is causing parents to not even want to mess with throwing parties anymore).

I get asked often how M is doing, and I'm happy to say that he's doing really well. He's so incredibly grateful to everyone who has reached out and offered their love and support.  In fact, I have another heartwarming update to share. One of the invited party guest's moms recently reached out to me, and invited M over for a play date at her house yesterday. It was M's first ever play date and he was so excited.  I was so thankful to her for being brave enough to reach out to me.  We chatted for a long time, and I feel like I made a new friend as well. We are going to have him over to our house soon, and M couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had at his friend's house.

We are still working diligently on sorting through incoming mail and I just wanted everyone to know that we are reading every single card and letter that we receive. I wish that we could individually thank each and every one of you.  Our family has been forever changed by this and we appreciate all of the love so much!

Parents Please Don't Forget to RSVP

I write this post with swollen, puffy eyes, still raw and burning from crying myself to sleep on my pillow. What was supposed to be a fun filled birthday party weekend, complete with pizza, cake, games, prizes and friends, went horribly wrong.

To understand my devastation, I first need to tell you about our newly turned nine year old son. Mae Mae (nickname used for his privacy) is a bright, sensitive, caring little boy who loves animals and babies. We jokingly call him the baby whisperer as he has this incredible ability to calm a crying baby.  He's also an avid animal lover and a vegetarian by choice.  While his peers may be busy being wrapped up in their cell phones and video games, M's prized possessions are his stuffed animals and plushy characters from his favorite movies and shows.  He's also a naturally funny boy who loves nothing more than to make people laugh. He's known by friends and family as a future Will Ferrell in training.  In our large, chaotic family, he's the peacemaker child who's easy to please and looks at life with hope and optimism. He's the kid who would give the shirt off of his back to a stranger, hand over a beloved toy to make another child smile, and would give his mom his favorite candy bar without hesitation. He's a bit of a rare breed these days in an ever changing world where the majority of communication is done online, invitations to events consist of a social media announcement, and manners and etiquette are becoming obsolete.

As a home schooled child, he's never had a real birthday party before. Don't get me wrong, he's had parties, but they were limited to his mom and dad, siblings, grandpa and occasionally a family friend, but usually just his siblings and parents. This worked well for many years as he was young and didn't really know what he was missing but last year on his eighth birthday, he really started to notice that he didn't have any friends. We held his party at Chuck E Cheese, but couldn't think of anyone with kids his age to invite so we did the best that we could and invited a couple of family friends. Unfortunately no one showed up and even though he was used to only having parties with his siblings, my heart ached for him and I vowed that his ninth birthday would be different.  After his party ended, I patted him on the head and said, "Next year you'll be in public school. You're going to have lots of classmates to invite. Don't you worry buddy." He smiled and his big brown eyes sparkled with excitement as he replied with "Yay! I can't wait!" This ninth birthday was supposed to be his year. His special day. His first real party with friends.

His favorite book series is Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Since his dear old mom is severely challenged in the crafty department, I ordered him custom invitations on Etsy, an edible DOAWK cake topper, and turned to Pinterest for DOAWK themed games.  He handed out multiple invitations to his friends at school, and one from taekwondo and eagerly counted down the days, hours, and minutes until his birthday.

When his birthday finally arrived yesterday, he was up before the sun. He hung streamers, blew up balloons, cleaned his room, took a bath, picked out his outfit, set the table, and carefully assembled the treat bags for his friends.  "Only three more hours until my friends arrive" he yelled. "This is the happiest day of my life, Momma. I can't wait until my friends get here!"

Hours before the party...

 

Still very much full of hope and excitement

 

One of the many DOAWK inspired games we had planned..

M helped me with these 

 

Waiting for guests to arrive....

 

He was so excited and anxious....

His edible cake topper...which didn't exactly fit on the cake like promised but close enough

When the party time came and passed, and none of the party guests were here yet, I started to get a little nervous. I had asked parents to RSVP on the invitation, but hadn't received a single reply. Since we're new in town (and school just started a little over a month ago here), I didn't have phone numbers for any of the parents. M rides the bus to and from school, and unfortunately none of his friends are at our bus stop, so I don't have the opportunity to see the other parents (add in a super fussy baby to the mix and some days i'm lucky if I even get to leave the house). I expressed my concerns with my husband the night before his party but he reassured me that "Nobody seems to RSVP these days. Don't worry, they'll come. Kids love birthday parties."  I considered cancelling the party, but M told me that five of his friends had told him they were coming so I was worried that if I cancelled, they would still show up. Our daughter had a birthday party earlier this month and none of the girls RSVP'd but four of them still showed up anyways, so we were cautiously optimistic.

At first I hoped maybe they got lost, or were running late, but we live near the elementary school and our house is not difficult to find. I included our vital contact info-address, phone number, on the invitation, etc. I was most definitely reachable.

M who was starting to get a bit anxious, ran outside, and began to run up and down the street. Each and every car that turned down our street he craned his little neck to get a better look, while hoping and praying it was a missing party guest.

But no one came. Not a single child.

Shortly after my husband arrived home with enough pizza to feed a small army.  The party should've been in full swing at that point, but instead M hung his head, his tiny shoulders began to shake. "No one came Dad. I guess i'm not very popular at school" and he sobbed. 

Words cannot describe the utter and complete devastation that washed over me, my husband and my nearly 70 year old father who was almost brought to tears himself.  Seeing my heartbroken little boy sitting all alone at his brightly decorated, empty party table was more than I could take.  I briefly excused myself to my bathroom and sobbed quietly, as I didn't want to upset him any further.  My dad and husband did an excellent job of distracting him and we made the best of it.  One of our family friends did show up and even though he's an adult, M was really happy he came. We ate as much of the pizza and bread sticks as we could stomach, sang happy birthday and ate cake, and even played a silly game that M was eager to play with his friends.  He opened presents with a big smile on his face, because, well, that's our boy.  Despite his pain, he tried his hardest to have a good time. My dad offered to take him bowling, something he's been wanting to do for a while. We showered him with hugs, love and kisses in a feeble attempt to salvage the disastrous day. We came home tired and exhausted. Once the kids were safely asleep, my husband and I fell apart. There's only been a few times i've seen my tough, manly husband tear up, and last night was one of them.

Trying desperately to make the best of a very bad situation

 

So we packed up and went bowling...he loved it! 

I don't blame the kids who didn't show up, and i'm trying very hard not to blame the parents as i'm honestly too devastated to be angry.  There are a million excuses and scenarios that could explain why no one showed. Perhaps they didn't feel comfortable sending their kids over to our house for a couple of hours, perhaps they already had plans, perhaps their child was sick, or perhaps their child's invitation never made it home and is crumpled up into a ball at the bottom of their backpack, who really knows? What I do know though, is that M will likely never forget his ninth birthday. It will forever be etched in his memory bank as that one year when no one came to his party. And that kills me as a parent. And it could've all been avoided by a simple RSVP, via phone call, text, email, whatever, etc.  I know I will definitely never ignore those four little letters ever again. 

Parents or caregivers, please, I beg you not to ignore it either.  I know you're busy, tired, stressed, have a million and one other things to do, etc. I'm right there with you, but please the next time you're tempted to ignore the handwritten invitation from a classmate, please remember that there could be a child sitting at an empty party table, crying into his napkin, feeling unloved and rejected. Let the parents know one way or the other if your child is attending. If you have other plans or don't feel comfortable sending your child, that's fine, but do the right thing and let them know! Had we known that no one was coming, we would've changed the date or time, or we would've planned something extra special for him with the money that we instead spent on the party.  We would've done anything to avoid the pain and devastation he experienced.

This morning as he woke up and got ready for school, he seemed to be in decent spirits. His main concern was making sure that his friends still got their treat bags that he made for them. That's our boy though, always thinking of others instead of himself.  He's a good kid and we definitely did something right with this one. So please, please, please, do the right thing and RSVP!!

and then there were eight

I've sat down to write this post about a million times, but i'm always interrupted by a screaming baby, a six year old asking me how long to set the timer for microwave popcorn, or a husband who can't ever seem to find his keys. This is my life. Every. Single. Day.

Anyways, as you may have guessed by now, Seanie Mac (his nickname) is here!! He was born on March 30, 2016 shortly before 2 pm. He weighed a whopping 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20 inches long.  I wish I could say that life with a newborn is blissful, serene and all of that other silly asinine stuff you see on a baby shampoo commercial, where the post partum mom is smiling insanely and already back to a size 2, but this is real life.  He's actually quite fussy and demanding, wants to eat 24 hours a day, and prefers to be held all of the time (don't we all) and the only person wearing a size 2 around here is the baby. But he's super cute and we adore him, so it's okay.

I will spare you the details of my birth story, unless you really want to hear it. Really? You do? Well okay then.....

He was born in the passenger seat of my car, on the freeway while my husband was driving me to the hospital.....just kidding, that was a YouTube video I recently watched.  Amazing video if you haven't seen it. My birth story isn't nearly as exciting. I was actually induced on March 30th because i'm antibody sensitized with some rare antigens that can hurt the baby. Since this was baby number six and I was seriously the size of a hippopotamus, I thought there was no possible way I would go to full term. Peanut was induced at 35 weeks because of my antibodies and low fluid levels, so I just assumed Seanie would be here early as well.

He wasn't.

As 38 weeks approached, I pretty much would've done anything to get him out. I tried Evening Primrose Oil capsules without any luck, I ate fresh pineapple everyday, all day long until my mouth went numb, had sex with the husband even though I looked like a giant sea tortoise who flipped over on her back and got stuck, but Seanie just wasn't coming out. My OB assured me at my 38 week appointment that he would be inducing me at 39 weeks.  Let me just add in here that when you promise a hugely hormonal, miserable, pregnant woman that you are going to induce on a certain date, dammit you better follow through!! But of course he forgot to schedule it and I spent two days playing phone tag with the scheduling people. Finally after leaving a hysterical "If you don't call me back right this minute with an induction date, I will find you and kill you" they called me back. Okay, so I didn't actually say that last part as the last thing I needed was to give birth behind bars for threatening a physician, but I wasn't taking no for an answer.  Luckily for me my OB agreed that Seanie needed to come out sooner than later, and scheduled my induction for the next morning at 6:30 am. Crisis over, prison avoided.

My husband was less than thrilled as he had just been hit with a really bad cold and felt like death, but I tossed some Dollar Tree cold pills at him and told him to suck it up, because my poor vagina could not take one more second of an eight pound baby doing the Mexican Hat Dance on my cervix.  We arrived at the hospital and the pitocin was started. If you've never had this before, it causes horrible contractions that come very closely together. They are much more painful than natural contractions and you literally feel like you're dying a slow, painful, torturous death. I tried really hard to skip the epidural but after five hours of screaming and crying through contractions while my husband sat on a comfy recliner sipping his Starbucks, I motioned for him to call the epidural lady ASAP (if memory serves me correctly, I believe it included a hand gesture and an F word).

The epidural lady arrived and within minutes I was feeling relaxed and comfortable. Since I hadn't slept at all the night before, I decided this would be the perfect time to take a nap. My OB left and headed back to the hospital to see some patients, my husband walked downstairs to the cafeteria to eat lunch, and I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.....for about 10 minutes. Seriously. Ten freaking minutes. All of a sudden I felt like I needed to take a colossal dump and since this wasn't my first rodeo, I knew exactly what that meant, Seanie boy was about to come out. The nurse who must've had "she's going to blow at any second" radar walked into my room and said, "You're fully dilated aren't you?" and I shook my head and said, "Yep, I think so".  Of course I was so she told me to cross my legs (this would've been helpful advice say nine months ago) and to hold him in as she needed to call my doctor and tell him to get back to the hospital. A few minutes later my husband came back from lunch and things started to move very quickly. Once you see beds start breaking apart and stirrups folding up and full gowns and head gear going on (birth is messy), you know that shit is getting real and you also know there's no going back. If you've ever suffered from severe constipation and you've pushed out a bowel movement the size of a bowling ball, this is much much MUCH worse so this is about when the panic and fear kick in. It doesn't matter if it's your first, sixth or eighteenth, it's a scary thing to push a human out of your loins (forget the head....think shoulders...shudder).

As luck would have it, Seanie was in the posterior position which means he was coming face up. It's not impossible to deliver in this position (I actually pushed our third child out this same way) but it's not ideal. The doc could not get him to rotate so we decided to forge ahead and at this point all I wanted was the pain to end.  There are a lot of jokes aimed at women like myself who have large families with lots of kids that by the time the fifth or sixth kid comes out, they must just fall right out. Oh how I wish that were true.  I pushed and pushed (and pushed) and he did not want to come out. At this point everyone is yelling at me "push push push push push push" and I wanted to "smack smack smack smack smack" everyone, but I was not in the position to do it, so I took another deep breath and pushed.  Seanie Mac finally came out after several pushes and since I was still somewhat numb from the recently given epidural, I didn't even notice that my lady parts split wide open during the delivery and the doctor did some lovely needlepoint work on my vag.

I'll leave you now with some pics (no, not of my vag...the baby...geez!) I have so much more I want to say but i'll save it for later as i've already had to take a million breaks while writing this post to deal with baby boy and his brothers. At this rate, if I continue writing, i'll be posting this birth announcement when he's in college. 

Me and Seanie Mac shortly after his birth. 

He looks like he's contemplating whether or not he got a good deal doesn't he? 

 Coming home pic. 

Don't let this fool you. He isn't yawning here. 

Rather, he's putting most screamo musicians to shame. 

My son can out scream you all!

 

This isn't a good pic as far as quality goes (dark room, cell phone pic) 

but it still melts my heart. 

 

Sleeping newborn...my fave! 

 Photo shoot via daddy....this shoot did not go as expected at all.

We bought a fancy outfit for him to wear but he freaked out and went ape shit.

And forget about him falling asleep in one of those lumpy newborn poses

....nope not our kid!!!

So we did the best we could..he was actually screaming throughout this entire shoot

but my hubby is a pro so he managed to click some shots in between screams. I think he did an excellent job considering Seanie is not a cooperative client. He hates diaper changes, clothing changes, and just people messing with him in general. Definitely our child. No DNA test required.

 At 7 weeks he is smiling, laughing and cooing at us. 

I'll enjoy it while it lasts. I have teenagers.

The Post It Note Anniversary

My husband and I recently celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. We've been a couple much longer than ten years, but we dated for a while before my dear sweet hubby finally popped the question (yes, he was one of those "I'm never getting married" types when I met him). Over the years we've had some good anniversaries and some not so good ones. Then there are the completely forgotten ones, and yes, i'm also guilty of forgetting a couple of our anniversaries (men, you aren't the only ones who forget, or maybe you are and i'm just a really crappy wife).

According to tradition different anniversary years have themes.  The first year is the paper anniversary, second is cotton, third is leather, etc. These themes supposedly help you determine which type of gift to buy your spouse.  For those of you approaching your tenth anniversary, i've made it very easy for you to find the perfect gift because I decided the tenth anniversary should be called the Post It Note anniversary because if your husband is anything like mine, he doesn't remember a damn thing you told him. Ever. Unless it has to do with sex because then he totally remembers, but anything else, you might as well be talking to the dog.

Here's a classic example:
I had an ultrasound scheduled for 8 am on Monday morning to check on baby's growth, my fluid levels, and basically to see if he's ready to be born because my OB was thinking of inducing me this week due to some recent complications.  I've known since last Thursday that I needed this ultrasound. I probably told my dear sweet hubby no less than 50 times about this upcoming appointment. We've talked about it, i've explained my doctor's reasoning for it, and i've explained that he will need to take our daughter to school because I wont be back in time to drive her.  I made sure there was NO possible way he could forget about this ultrasound appointment.

Last night I informed my daughter that her dad would be driving her to school in the morning. Her reaction was, "Huh? Why?" but apparently she wasn't the only confused person in the room.  My dear sweet hubby turns his head and gives me that look. Those of you who have been with someone for more than five years probably know this look well. It's kind of a cross between utter confusion and the stink eye, mixed with the squinchy face, and add a little bit of constipation on the side. I gave him a chance to redeem himself, took a deep breath and said, "Babe, you know why. I wont be here. REMEMBER I have an 8 am ultrasound in the morning?" to which he replies, "Um no, you haven't said anything about that at all"

This is where I had to excuse myself from the room because spousal homicide is highly frowned upon.

I started to wonder if maybe it wasn't my husband's fault and perhaps he truly had a hearing problem and needed some medical attention, but then I remembered that the man can watch soccer, football and UFC weigh ins and remember every last detail for weeks so I don't think dragging him to a hearing loss specialist would be very useful. Besides who wants to pay hundreds of dollars for a doctor to tell me what I already know...."Ma'am, your husband's hearing is perfectly fine. He just apparently suffers from selective hearing loss whenever you speak."

 So ladies, save the expensive golf clubs for another year, forget about the stupid chocolates or smelly flowers (because seriously what man really wants flowers) go to Costco and buy an industrial sized box of Post It Notes. Write important shit down and slap it on his forehead (you can decide on the level of gentleness you place them on his head) so he cannot "forget".  Because if your husband is anything like mine, the next time you tell him about an appointment, a meeting, a birthday party, a sporting event, basically anything that doesn't involve him getting sex, he will look at you and say, "Wait, what? No, you never told me that."
 

Growing Pains

Where do I begin? I seem to be averaging about a post a year which I know there is no excuse for.  For those still reading, I thank you. I will be better, I promise. Soon I will have more material than I'll even know what to do with. If you keep reading, you'll find out why.

So much has happened in the last year that I could not even begin to catch you all up. The shortened version is my oldest two teens had moved out to live with my ex so we were down to three kids at home which was very weird. Most would think three kids is plenty, but when you're used to having five kids and even one leaves the house, you start feeling like an empty nester (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration but it really does feel weird).  Our youngest recently turned six so we were just getting to that stage where we could finally do adventurous activities as a family like roller skating, hiking, swimming, etc. I finally dropped the Depo weight and was feeling fabulous about my new body. I was taking dance classes and was starting to feel like an independent adult again with my own life.

The great part of being an adult ballerina...you can drink after class

Back to my pre-pregnancy weight and feeling great! 

I even found my collar bones again. I was pretty sure they disappeared forever

Oh and we even got rid of our french fried infested minivan and downgraded to a cute little SUV that I absolutely love!

Here are the younger kids giving our minivan a loving farewell. 

I had my own loving gesture...

My hubby and I even went on a much needed weekend trip to Seattle see one of our favorite DJ's, Adrian Lux. The last time we went on an overnight trip without children was over 8 years ago if that says anything about what it's like to have a small army of children and no family in the area.  I'm not sure if I previously mentioned this in a different post but my husband and I actually met at an EDM dance club over thirteen years ago. We both love EDM music (electronic dance music) and used to be quite the dancers in our younger years (at least the Long Island Iced Teas we drank told us we were good dancers. Luckily this was long before smart phones or YouTube might have painted a different picture). Anyways, we started going to EDM shows again and dancing the night away. I *almost* became a raver, minus the drugs and the crazy costumes because i'm not sure a bunch of 20 year olds want to see an almost 40 year old woman dressed in nothing but furry angel wings and a thong.

Then again we're not too shabby for a couple of geezers

so maybe furry wings and a thong it is (kidding)

 Another EDM show we went to in Tacoma..

Above and Beyond (best show ever) 

and no, that angel is not me. I would've fallen and ended up in the ER. 

Maybe next time....

Despite all of the fabulous adult things going on in our lives some things never change like my dog is still a giant pain in the arse who poops in the house whenever we leave, my boys are killing each other over the Roku remote as i'm trying to type this, i'm still basically a chauffeur who spends my entire day driving kids back and forth to activities but I don't get paid for it, Winco is still my home away from home and yes, they're still using the same broke ass shopping carts from 1949.

So, this is the perfect opportunity to announce that we (well technically me) are having another baby. Yes, we have officially lost our minds and baby #6 will be here literally any day now.  His name is Sean (we'll be calling him Seanie because we're really big into nicknames) and he'll be our 4th boy. Our youngest two are both boys so we were kind of hoping for a girl at first, and the ultrasound tech even told us at 12 weeks we were most likely having a girl, but genetic testing results came back two weeks later and said boy. And then I ended up needing an ultrasound at 16 weeks and any doubts I had that the genetic tests were wrong, were quickly laid to rest. He is ALL boy. Then we came home from the ultrasound and our 11 year old daughter started acting like Satan and we breathed a sigh of relief that this kid has a penis.

 Here he is kicking my butt just like the others...

this kid never stops moving so basically we're screwed when he comes out. 

Sleep is apparently something that only happens when you die and

knowing my luck i'll be put in charge of all of the children in the after life.

The only thing that made us somewhat relax was that we were down to three kids and felt like, "Ok, we've had four kids before. We can do this."  Sure, our new SUV would be a little tighter, but we would make it work. What's one more kid, right? Right.....

and then it happened. BOTH (yes both) of our older kids moved back home. Boom. Just like that we're back to five kids with one more on the way.  So, our house is once again pure chaos (not that it ever wasn't), our poor SUV already looks about 20 years old thanks to Peanut literally coloring all over his car seat, his new jeans, and the seat of my car yesterday (thanks assholes at Crayola who claim their products are washable), and although we have third row seating, I'm worried we'll have to start strapping kids to the luggage racks.

Much more to come so please stay tuned...

Watch Out Maddie, There's a New Dancer in Town

Tap tap tap. Is this thing on? Hello? Okay, okay so I know I totally vanished off the face of the blogosphere (is that even a word?)  I could give you my reasons but they are sad and depressing and who the hell needs that, right? Anyways, I'm back and better than ever with a few (a lot) more grey hairs than I had a year ago.

First off, I lost about forty pounds.  At least half of it was stress related, but hell, I'll take it.  With the weight loss came a big transformation.  As my depression started to lift, I started focusing on myself and my needs since everything has been nothing but kids, kids, kids for the last eighteen years (oh yeah, I have an 18 year old now…gulp).

I danced a teeny tiny bit in college and loved it, but then I got pregnant with child number three and pregnant women and ballet leotards don't mix, so I quit. I didn't think I'd ever get to take a dance class ever again, but recently I started looking around and there are actually quite a few options for beginner adults who want to learn to dance. Lucky for me, a friend said she also wanted to take dance classes, so we signed up together which made it a little less intimidating.

Although I signed up a couple of weeks before my first class started, I waited until the day of my first class to buy my dance gear. Yes, I'm a procrastinator of the worst kind (just ask my children when their school supplies or Halloween costumes are purchased). There is one main dance wear store in our city that is pretty much the motherlode of all things dance (tap, jazz, ballet, Zumba, gymnastics, probably even stripper attire although I didn't look--next visit).

Since I'm a big chicken and was too afraid to walk into the dance wear store myself, I forced my husband and two young boys to come with me. Much less stressful than going alone, right? Yeah. Sometimes these things sound better in my head than in reality.  Of course the boys thought it was great fun running around the circular racks grabbing sequined hats and feathered boas while I stumbled around the store being completely ignored by two employees who looked like actual professional dancers…tall, thin, elegant, and oblivious to the fact that I'm stumbling around their store like a husband lost in a lingerie shop on Valentine's Day.

I feel your pain Julia Roberts. We are the same.  

After I gathered up some nerve I walked up to the counter and said, "I need help" and one of them took pity on me and said, "Okay, let's get you fitted for shoes."  Of course I just had to wear my black flats without socks that smell so bad that you can't take them off without tossing them into the back of the closet, shutting the door and running away.  They are beyond Odor Eaters. They really should be burned, but I'm pretty sure they are flame retardant at this point. I have no doubt that my feet were disgusting and smelly but at this point I had bigger problems. Like how I was going to squeeze my sweaty, swollen foot into a slipper that was crinkled up to look like an elf shoe made to fit a Build a Bear.  I did manage to get my foot into the shoe, but my toes curled up and the thought of dancing in them made me a little stabby. So she handed me another crinkled up elf shoe that honestly looked the same size as the previous elf shoe, but she swore it was bigger and this time my toe went to the end of the shoe which I guess is how they are supposed to fit. Whatever. I did briefly notice that there were two elastic straps hanging out, but I'll explain more on that later. 

After the shoes she said, "Now you just need to go find something comfortable to wear" and went back behind the counter.  Yeah, she totally abandoned me. Bitch. I looked out into a sea of various colored strappy spandex items and honestly felt like I was going to cry as I thumbed through racks and racks of leotards that claimed to be adult sized, but looked like they had a better chance of fitting my five year old.  Let's just say that the majority of these leotards are not cut for women with breasts, especially women like myself who breastfed four babies if you know what I'm saying. Mmmhhhhmmm. 

I finally found the plain, more modest looking black cotton leotards that didn't look totally Mormon, but at least allowed me to wear a bra and then grabbed some stretchy pants. I was going to buy some pink tights and a wrap around skirt but after trying on the first leotard with some short shorts, I'm glad I didn't. Did you know that they make about a million variations of tights? It's really kind of ridiculous. My husband and sons had already abandoned me at the dance store at this point so I ended up buying the first outfit that didn't give me a wedgie and left. Who am I kidding? They ALL gave me a wedgie.  

When I got home I still had a couple of hours left until class. I tried on my shoes and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to tie the elastic straps. First I tried to criss cross the straps and tie them behind my ankle. Not only did my foot look like a pig in a blanket, but I'm pretty sure I was mere seconds away from amputation, as my foot started to turn fifty shades of purple. I wondered if dancers just didn't have ankles? Or maybe I  had cankles?  

In a panic I started YouTubing things like, "How do you tie ballet shoes?" Several video tutorials popped up. Thank goodness for YouTube for realizing that people are stupid. It took a while but sure enough I found a video with the exact same brand of shoes that I had purchased and it said, "How to sew the elastic straps on your child's ballet slippers" SEW? Say what? Of course the black swan at the dance store failed to mention anything about sewing as I would've laughed in her face. Or perhaps she did, but I was too busy focusing on the fact that my toes were morphing into curly fries to notice. Either way I broke into a cold sweat. 

This is some bullshit. 

I gathered up my sewing supplies and began to sew. It took me over an hour to sew down the straps on shoe number one but I did it. As I shoved my sweaty, swollen foot back into my elf shoe, my heart sank. I sewed the straps on backwards.  No, really. I did. 

I threw the shoe across the room and started to think maybe I should take up a different hobby. A book club was sounding pretty darn good at that moment.  I cut the threads and started over. I finished the shoes just in time as my husband was calling me on his way home from work to ask if our daughter was ready for soccer practice. Daughter? Wait, I have kids? CRAP! Yeah, that was my reaction as I was so focused on sewing my shoes, I pretty much forgot that I had a child who was now late for practice. 

The next hour was complete chaos but somehow the husband and kids made it to soccer practice, while I made it to the dance studio, found my friends and got ready for class. Since it was listed as a "beginner's class" I was expecting that we would introduce ourselves, learn the positions (which I had long since forgotten) and take things slow and easy. Nope. Not at all how things went.  As soon as we set down our purses, it was pretty much "Okay ladies, line up at the barre and repeat these sequences after me" as she rattled off about fifty moves at a hundred miles an hour, followed by, "And then we'll turn and do it on the other side. Got it?" 

Beginner's class my ass. 

I briefly contemplated spraining my own ankle in a feeble attempt to escape any further humiliation or injury. Three of the ladies in the group were experienced dancers, who had multiple years of experience. The three of us friends who signed up together? Not so much. I'm sure we looked like an SNL skit but we hung in there until the very end, even when she was yelling out foreign words to us like, "fondu" which to me means "Oh cool we're going to the Melting Pot to dip some bread and shit into a steaming hot bowl of melted cheese" but FYI that's not what it means at all in ballet terms. 

After class I couldn't even walk down the stairs. My legs felt like Jello Pudding Pops. The next day was even worse, but today, I'm feeling okay.  I'm actually looking forward to my next class. I'm not giving up and I will become a ballerina dammit, even if it kills me. 

Maybe for Sia's next music video she will need a future version of herself in which she's a bit older, saggier mom to multiple kids, sitting in the carpool lane in her pajamas eating two day old soggy crackers out of her daughter's lunch box. If that's the case then watch out Maddie Ziegler cause I totally got this. 

My before class photo and after class photo

and yes, I should've gone to the bar after class and 

maybe I would've had I been able to feel my legs...

Why some people (me) shouldn't wear make up

I've been feeling a little down in the dumps about my looks lately. I don't take care of myself. I do bathe daily, but other than that, I don't do anything to help myself out in the glamour/fashion department. I wear ugly pajamas that would probably get me arrested for indecent exposure if I wore them out in public (which I don't, except if you count dropping off and picking up kids but I don't get out of the car for that...although I totally should). My hair has gotten crazy long and a bit out of control, yet I do nothing to it except pull it back.  I never wear make up. I guess I've just gotten lazy.  I've gained a lot of weight and have like two pairs of pants that fit and I hate them both, and when you don't feel confident in what you're wearing, you just kinda stop trying or caring. 

Recently I decided to do something nice for myself and ordered some mineral make up. I used to wear it years ago, but ran out and just never ordered more (which is seriously the last time I probably wore any).  Today I needed to run a few errands so I put on my ugly clothes (haven't had a chance to do anything about those yet), put my long, boring hair in a ponytail (shut up), and was ready to walk out of my bathroom when a little voice in my head said, "Maybe you should put on some make up".   

So that's exactly what I did. 

It's a three step process so there is a concealer, the light foundation in the palest color possible (sadly I'm whiter than my toilet paper), and finally the blush.  

I thought that I had put on the foundation and started to reach for the blush to finish off the job, when I glanced at myself in the mirror and freaked the f@$k out. 

I looked like this....

My face was purple. PURPLE!!!!  I looked like Barney or Violet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Somehow Harold had snuck into my bathroom and colored all over my face with his damn purple crayon! 

I was about two seconds away from sitting down at my MacBook to write a super nasty complaint to my Ebay seller about how their foundation turned me into a purple people eater (yes, I'm too cheap to order it from an actual company), when I noticed the words "Sweet Cheeks" on the lid. I had covered my entire face with BLUSH instead of the foundation.  Cause I'm a genius. 

After realizing my blunder, I needed to get the purple off so I started to scrub. I wasn't purple anymore, but I now looked like this....

My face is now a deep shade of maroon from being scrubbed really hard, and I look like I have a fever/flesh eating virus. I'm about to head out to go shopping and I'm feeling super sexy. I may even frighten some small children. I'm so glad I decided to buy some make up to help me build my self confidence back.  Best decision ever. 

You don't deserve your kids

I recently received a rather nasty, hateful email through my blog from a reader who said that I was a horrible, rotten, selfish mother who didn’t deserve my kids because I cracked a few jokes aimed at motherhood and I vented about my less than perfect day. This got me to thinking that perhaps she does have a point.  Maybe I don’t always deserve my kids.

Before you panic and send me more hate mail, please let sit back and let me tell you a little story about my day.   Today started out pretty normal, but quickly escalated into a big ole flop of failure.   I was driving across town to pick up my older kids from school. My two toddler boys were buckled into their car seats.  The radio was playing, my dog was happily peering out the window, and all was good in my world.  Then suddenly just like that, something went terribly wrong.  My newly turned four year old for whatever reason, decided that he wanted me to drive in a different direction than I normally do.  A direction that would’ve made it impossible to reach my final destination.  It just wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much he screamed or cried.  Realizing that he wasn’t getting his way he began to kick his feet into the air and scream.  I feebly attempted to calm him down by trying to talk to him in a stern voice.  It didn’t work.  Then I gave him a warning: “You will be going straight to bed when we get home little man if you don’t stop it”.  That didn’t work either.  And finally I just tried to ignore it.  You can guess how well that worked out.

I picked up the older kids and began my drive home.  Apparently my youngest son was just warming up as the screaming intensified and got louder and louder.  I tried to pretend that I was listening to a new screamo rock band. It used to be all the rage, right?   When that didn’t work I silently prayed that Peanut would temporary lose his voice, just until we got home and weren’t confined to a tiny space without an escape.  When that didn’t work, I briefly fantasized about a giant bird swooping down and plucking me out of the window and carrying me away to a land of peace and tranquility, whatever the hell that means. The damn bird could've dumped my ass off at Starbucks and that would've been fine with me. The drive home was painful for everyone but I knew I had to get home as quickly as possible.  It didn't help that I got stuck behind an elderly driver going 15 mph the entire drive home.  Happens to me every. single. time.

I pulled into my driveway but things continued to downward spiral.  By the time the minivan door slid open, my baby Godzilla was in full blown, “somebody kill me now”, meltdown mode.  Suddenly his car seat buckle seemed to be held together by rubber cement and I struggled to unfasten it.  My normally petite, feather weight of a son, suddenly felt like an elephant whom was pregnant with twin baby elephants.

It’s a known fact that every single time one of my kids is going postal, my childless by choice neighbors just happen to be outside to see the show.  They shot me their usual disapproving daggers of discontent and relief that they were able to walk inside to a quiet house, while I tried to pry Gumby out of my van who now had a kung fu, Spiderman grip on the frame of the van.

I carefully removed his kung fu grip, one tiny finger at a time, immediately walked him inside and put him to bed (like I threatened earlier) and then I collapsed onto my bed, still wearing my coat and shoes.  Tears began to fill my eyes and I thought to myself “Why do I deserve this?” I love my kids more than life itself. My kids have always come first.  I turn off my shows so they can watch their annoying kid shows, even though I’d rather pluck out my eyeballs with a fork than have to watch another episode of Mario Bros.  I give them my last piece of candy, even if it’s my very favorite. I sit in long pick up lines at school even though I’m bored out of my mind, and I read them bedtime stories until my tired voice cracks and my tonsils begin to ache.  Am I saying i'm perfect? Obviously not. I think anyone who has read my blog can figure that one out on their own.  There is nothing I love more than to make jokes at my own expense.  But to say I don't deserve my kids because I don't find every aspect of motherhood magical is a low blow and pretty ridiculous.

Parenthood is tough.  It’s not always sunshine and roses. If you have kids then I’m preaching to the choir, but what I don’t understand though, is why it’s not acceptable to vent when we have an occasional rough day?  We should be supporting each other instead of sending nasty grams to someone telling them how they don’t deserve their child because they dared to complain.  I can think of many examples of why some people don't deserve kids.  This isn't one of them.

There is a definite attitude on the Internet that mothers who complain about their children are somehow not worthy or deserving of having kids.  That if we complain, that must mean we don’t love or appreciate our children.  Or worse we post a seemingly harmless vent about something irritating our kid did and all we're looking for is a sympathetic, "Hugs" or "I get it" and instead we're told things like, "Be grateful that your child doesn't have cancer."  Huh?  I must've missed the memo that states only parents who have a child with a catastrophic illness are allowed to vent. Rather we’re supposed to suck it up no matter how tough things get, suffer in silence, cry in the bathroom and tell no one, or share picture perfect Pinterest-worthy photos, pretending to be supermom, when we're really not.

The next time you see a child having a colossal meltdown in the grocery store because a mom stands firm and tells her little darling no to the 20 lb bag of Laffy Taffy, or you read a post on the internet written by a mom (or dad) who had a rotten day and are simply frustrated and at the end of his or her rope, try not to judge. Be thankful that your day was frustration free. Tomorrow you might not be so lucky.

And whatever happened to screaming Mr. Peanut you may be wondering? He fell asleep in time out and i'm staring at his adorable chubby cheeks and thinking, "Thank GAWD he's asleep."  

As for my internet hater, I wish she wouldn't of remained anonymous so I could've emailed her back and asked if she wanted to babysit.  I’d love to soak in her infinite wisdom since she appears to have this parenting stuff down.