Baby Mine

This is how i am going to remember my baby boy when he is taller than me, driving a pick-up and smacking into other guys on the football field

Ghetto Coat Catastrophe

this is a post that i presume only women will understand.
my apologies if you cannot relate to this story.

this is an example of the drama and crisis that are sometimes involved when fashion is being considered.

pardon me if i ramble on......

and so the story goes:

i began a search sometime in November for Jenny's winter coat.
just, you know....... remembering each time i was shopping for other necessary items
"oh yeah, my girl needs a coat. lets see what options i have at this store."
trying to make the best choice concerning fashion, function and cost.

side note: my husband can't seem to understand why it takes several trips to several stores to make your decision. and THEN i am always going back to finally make my purchase, only to find they are out of my selection.
i can't tell you how many times this has happened to me.

so back to this particular shopping tragedy.....

after about 10 shopping trips, i had settled on this little red wool pea coat with floral lining from Target: sounds simple enough. was going to conveniently pick it up on my next trip there for diapers, right? wrong.

i went to Target on a Saturday night in early December to make my purchase.

i for sure had to buy a coat. Jenny was going to her Granna's in Mississippi for a visit the next day.

of course although i had eyeballed a 3T about 3 times, and even tried it on Jenny once....... there were no more size 3T's at my Target.

in a moment of insanity i considered driving 30 minutes to Hamilton Place Target, at 9pm, with my 2 babies, just for this coat.
i gained a small portion of sanity and asked a clerk at the dressing rooms to call that store and see if they even had the coat. she was kind and obliged, but had no good news for me. so i didn't make that crazy drive after all.

i was plotting that on the next day, while driving 7.5 hrs to MS we would surely run into a Target eventually. if not i was going to settle for this little coat from Walmart:


SURELY we'd pass a Walmart!

well....... we did not come upon any Targets on our voyage.
we stopped at a Walmart in Trussville and i mentally had made peace with the little purple hearts puff coat i was fixing to purchase.

of course, as my horrid shopping luck goes, there were none in 3T or 4T even.

i was pretty desperate.

i combed thru the coats over and over just not wanting to accept it. the only 3T girls coat they had was ugly.
i knew i had to leave with a coat. i did not want that coat! we had to get hat and mittens too and they were gonna have to match this ugly GHETTO coat!
my pretty baby having to wear a ghetto coat for the entire winter??!!! this is wrong on so many levels.

(i'm sure you understand that, at this time, i do WANT to show you a picture of Ghetto Coat, or at least describe its horrid detail to you, but i must not. i am concerned that perhaps, just perhaps, you bought that exact coat for your daughter or grand-daughter b/c you liked it. so i don't want to hurt anybody's feelings...........)

but back to the moment of purchase: if you have a thread of fashionista in your blood (and also a thread of frugality) at all you can understand me. sigh.

we bought Ghetto Coat and a (cuter) matching set of hat/mittens. purchases totaling at $20.

with glum face i continued on our trip to MS.

i tried to set myself straight many times with a self-talking to....

it reminds me of something on TV you see where the person has a tiny angel sitting on one shoulder and a tiny devil perched on other shoulder.

so me with frugal practical mom angel on one shoulder saying: "listen self, you should be glad you can afford a jacket, a NEW jacket to keep your kid warm. you need to come down off the high horse of fashion and get real. Jenny does not even care what her coat looks like."

and then me with trendy, cute nostalgic devil on the other shoulder saying: "no self! don't dress your kid in that coat all winter! its a crime! you don't have to pay high dollar for cute! you're gonna find a deal later on and make this right. as her mom, its your responsibility to make sure that she is cute to the max. she deserves a cute coat and she's gonna be sporting one cause your fashion reputation depends on it!"

i somehow found a way to get the "voices" to stop.

the next weekend i made it all better with a different $8 purchase from Kmart:


and i feel much better now.

Favorite Holiday Toy--Classic Cardboard Box

On Christmas day Phi Phi and Pop Pop brought us a very big wrapped gift. It was a rocking horse. We threw alot of gift wrap into the box and left it on the front porch in true redneck fashion.

I know Will was thinking that he'd drag that box back into the house on a "rainy day" aka a day that the kids are driving us bizzerk.

Well that's about every day around here, so it wasn't long until the day had come. Jenny kept following us around trying to convince us to build her a house. She asked me to build it out of brick so that the big bad wolf could not blow it down. Will remembered the box on the porch and he brought it thru the den/kitchen and took it down to the basement (aka man cave) to work some quick magic.

While he was downstairs for 10 minutes, Jenny was upstairs assigning roles (again): She and Troy would be pigs and Daddy was to play big bad wolf. She also gleefully pranced around in the kitchen singing a made-up song. she told me "I'm singing a song and its called I Love My Daddy".

I went downstairs to see if he had fallen into the box or what. I found him cutting out windows and doors with box cutter and drawing shutters and a doorbell with magic marker. Finally he revealed his masterpiece to their delight:

Can't get them to keep the door open for a picture

Peek a boo Jenny

Its at this point that I notice on the camera that my daughter is only in undies. Decide to clothe my child for the remainder of pictures.

Big Bad Wolf has come to huff and puff

Troy peeking at Jenny thru window with gusto

Peek a boo Troy

They've been enjoying their house.
Jenny will brag that "her daddy can build a house". I think that she is thinking about this little book we read titled
"I love my daddy because....."
There is a page in the book where a daddy beaver is building a dam for his family and it says
"I love my daddy because he can build a house".

I have many more posts to write, for now it's time to snooze.