I've Moved!!!

Howdy.

I recently started blogging again, 6 weeks after the birth of my son, who is amazing by the way. I've relocated my blog to tainunez.wordpress.com. Please visit me there and follow along for my (mis)adventures.

Peace out!
Tai

Photography Session: Brent, Dely, and Dani

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to photograph my cousin and her family. She is also expecting a baby boy, but is due a couple of weeks before me. Hopefully, seeing her in the hospital won't scare me out of going through with labor and delivery. Huh? I can't get out of it now? Crap.

Sorry, I have a tendency to digress.

Below are some shots of the session. They were very laid back and easy to photograph. Little Dani worked the camera. (Two snaps honey!)

Hope you enjoyed the post. Peace out everyone.

Pregnancy Rant: Private School

(Pardon the language and length, but it's worth it. I promise!)

So, now Joey is in private school and I just feel like it was a huge mistake to have him go there. Why? A few things:

They have nap time. I had never heard of such a thing in Kindergarten, but okay. The first week of school I wondered what they were sleeping on since they never asked us to bring in mats, only a towel. I asked the teacher what they slept on and she said the floor. "The floor?" "Yes, they sleep on their towels on the carpeted area. It has padding. I think Joey may have just been complaining because he was having a tought time adjusting."

So, even though the first two days, Joey did tell me that his head was hurting after nap time, I thought to myself that it could be that he was just being whiney because he truly was having a hard time adjusting to Kindergarten. He was crying about any little thing and I thought to myself that this could be just that, another small thing that he is complaining about. I let it go even though I went in the classroom and noticed that the carpeted area was not padded any different than any other carpeted surface. It's not like the school chose high-quality, thick padding and nice plush carpet.

It's truly total bullshit. I should have said, "Do you sleep on the floor on a towel when you nap at home?" "No," she'd reply. "Really? Not even if it's carpeted? Wow, that's very strange since our children have to do it in your classroom." I'd probably have to ask the principal the same thing since this situation would probably be out of the teacher's hands.

This week, I had packed him a handi-snack and a drinkable yogurt for his snack. For lunch, I had ordered some cheese pizza for him which would be delivered to his classroom. Turns out that at snack time, Joey grabbed his handi-snack and his drinkable yogurt, and the teacher came over to him. "Joey, I need you to pick one snack only. Only one snack is allowed," she said. "But, my mom wants me to have both." Then the teacher said to him, "Is your mom the boss of the class?" Joey politely said, "No." He then chose to eat the handi-snack and saved the drinkable yogurt for lunch.

What the hell is the difference? What is the difference if I give him a juice box and a handi-snack or I give him a drinkable yogurt and handi-snack? The drinkable yogurt has more protein and is better for him to have than a freakin' juice box. Why doesn't she just let me worry about what my kid eats? He's MY kid!!!

Awhile ago I had a conversation with the teacher about his eating habits. I explained how picky Joey is when it comes to eating. There are few things that he eats, and when that is partnered with other lunch restrictions, plus not being able to refigerate or microwave his lunch, the options are even more skim. Do you know what her suggestion was for his snack after I told her all of this? Hard-boiled eggs. "Yeah, he's not going to eat that," I replied. I really wanted to say, "Yeah, he's not going to eat that you dumbass. For a teacher, you sure are stupid."

There have been a couple of other things that have annoyed me but in the interest of keeping this post short (too late, I know), I'm not going to list them.

I wish I would have had him go to the elementary school for our zone. It's an "A" school. He would have received a good education there, too. We chose to go to the private school because most people raved about the school, saying the education was way above par. I'm trying to hang on to that now. Hopefully, when he enters first grade it'll be different.

Right now, I honestly don't see the big deal with the education. Everything that they have been going over, he already knew from his previous school. The only new thing he has learned has been some prayers that he can recite by heart and the song Cumbaya with the motions. Are they serious? I actually feel like he may be falling behind because they are going over the same crap that he did last year and part of the year before...ABCs, pattern recognition, etc. I mean, give me a break! The kid is a chess player!!! So frustrating!


When we first went to see the school and the Kindergarten classrooms, it was all rainbows and kazoos. Reality check hits and that is not the case. Now, I'm stuck. I'm not going to pull him out of the school. Next year could be much better, and on top of that, he's used to the routine now. I can't pull him out and move him to a new school. He'd have a lot of trouble with that. So instead, I'll just bitch and complain with my hands tied while I keep coughing up monthly tuition! I feel like Leo Getz from the Lethal Weapon movies. Don't know who he is? Check out the two links below for a short clip. I am soooo Leo Getz!!!

Leo Getz-Lethal Weapon Clip 1
Leo Getz-Lethal Weapon Clip 2

Enjoy!

Rip a New One: Publix Edition

I'll get right to the ripping. I went to Publix and purchased about half of the items on my list because of time constraints. At checkout, I used a coupon from Save-a-Lot (one of this location's competitors). All goes well, I save a little money and check half of the items off of the list.

The next day, after picking Joey up from school, I stopped at Publix to finish buying the items left on the grocery list. I tried to keep the tab around $25 because I had a Save-a-Lot coupon that allowed me to take $5 off of my $25 purchase. I'd used Save-a-Lot coupons there before many times, including the day before, and I even had the little handout below that specifically said that it was one of their competitors.



Well, I give the coupon to the cashier once she is done ringing everything up. She takes one look at it and says, "We don't accept Save-a-Lot coupons."

"They changed the list of competitors?" I asked.

She looked at me and I could tell that in her mind, she was imagining the word "idiot" magically appearing on my forehead.

"Okaaaaaay," I said annoyingly as I put the coupon away.

She reached to give me a copy of the little handout with the list of Publix's competitors on it. "Oh, I already have one," I said. "It lists Save-a-Lot as a competitor," I said. Then I glanced over the handout and it looked like this:

As you can see, there is no Save-a-Lot on the list anymore. Was I annoyed? A tad bit, yes.

"Well, whoopty-freakin'-doo! You guys did change your list. Must have been very recently! You guys kept it on the down low, too!"

I paid for the groceries and pushed away as soon as the bagboy was done.

When I got to the car, I started it up and turned on the AC for Joey. He started climbing into his seat and I started putting the bags in the trunk of the car. Then, I realized that the bagboy not only put half a gallon of milk in the same bag as my Bagel Thins, which by the way, happen to be my go-to snack this month, but he took my wonderful, delicious pack of Publix bakery cupcakes and laid them on their side! I mean, who the heck does that to cupcakes? Especially, ones with cream cheese frosting, and even more, a pack of six that included 3 chocolate and 3 vanilla cupcakes! Do you know how hard it is to find that at the Publix Bakery? I wanted to scream!!! It was a sad, pathetic sight. The cupcakes were ruined. They had all tipped over.

Someone was not very happy about it. You'll only need one guess who. Ding, ding, ding. Not Joey, the other five-year-old! Me!

I told Joey we were going back in to see if we could get new cupcakes. I pushed the cart of groceries back into the store and headed right towards the customer service desk.

"Ma 'am what can I do for you?" He was a young man with glasses. Lucky for him, I don't hit people with glasses, at least not when my kid is around.

"I need new cupcakes because your bagboy decided to throw them in my cart on their side instead of upward."

"I'm so sorry about that. We can switch them out. Just go to the bakery and pick out new cupcakes."

I headed over to the cupcake display with Joey and of course, after searching and digging, there were no more packages that had 3 vanilla and 3 chocolate with cream cheese frosting.

"Freakin' fabulous. Why does Publix hate me?"

I explained to Joey, using kid-friendly terms, that the bagboy screwed us and he should be fired. "You know the man that put our stuff in bags and in the cart?" I asked.

"Uh huh," he innocently said.

"Well, the manager should tell that man to go bye-bye."

"Oh, okay," he said.

"Can you pick out new cupcakes? They don't have the same ones, so you have to pick different ones," I said.

After going back and forth for a few minutes, he settled on vanilla cupcakes with fudge frosting. We made our way back to the customer service desk and I was sooooo annoyed. Just to be sure, I asked Joey, "Hey, Joe, listen up. You can either have these new cupcakes or we can keep these other ones even though they're a little messed up. What do you want to do? Be sure because we can't change it later."

"Okay, I'll take the ones that are messed up," he said. Now I was even more annoyed. I could have been home by then.

I looked at the Publix clerk, handed him the fudge frosted cupcakes, and went ghetto on him.

"Oh-kay, well, you funna haf to put dat junk back cuz I ain't walkin' all da way back durrr again! Ya'll should haf a cupcake sekshun right up frrrunt for da pregnit girlz oh-kay, den you wouldn't haf to do dis! Peace out!" (You have to imagine me saying this while working my neck side to side and wearing big silver hoop earrings.)

Okay, okay so that's what it sounded like in my head, but in real life, it was more like, "Can you please put these back for me so that I don't have to walk all the way over there again?"

"Yes, ma'am. That's not a problem. Sorry again for the inconvenience."

Why do they have to be so freakin' courteous, ya know? They made it hard to leave there frustrated, but I did anyway.

I went home and enjoyed my cupcakes. I had three in a row! Oink! Oink! I felt much better after that.

Should I rip Publix a new one now since I didn't have the guts to do it in person at the store? Absolutley. (Geeze, the pregnancy has made me a softee.)

So hear goes...Publix you suck for not letting me use my coupon, for only having one pack of 3 vanilla and 3 chocolate cupcakes, for messing up that only pack of cupcakes, for putting the Bagel Thins in the same bag as the half-gallon of milk (which I let go cause I'm good like that), and then being so freakin' nice that I couldn't even be as rude as I wanted to be!

Thanks for listening to me while I ripped Publix a new one!

Hasta la vista.

8 Weeks and Counting

Now officially 32 weeks pregnant, I look at the new baby's room and realize, "Wow, we have a lot to do." Luckily, Alex isn't the lazy one in the relationship and began painting the old guest room from "Adirondack Path" to "Spring Glow."

The color is darker in the picture than it really is on the wall.

The top edges of the walls have not been painted, hence the brown. The treadmill sits in the middle of the room because Alex can't move it out on his own, and when it comes to lifting, I'm just about as useful as unscented potpourri.

My hope is that the top edges will get done this weekend and a second coat of paint will go on next weekend. Then comes the fun part! I'll be able to set up the crib!

Speaking of the weekend, I'm pretty excited that my baby shower is coming up. It's always fun looking at all of the baby clothes and other cutesy wootsy things. I just hope my friend hired a crane to lift me up and drop me into the restaurant through a large hole in the roof. I no longer fit through doorways. Or maybe we can just have the baby shower in the parking lot. Whatev, as long as I get to eat. Oink, oink.

Spontaneous Combustion

This Friday, I'll officially be 32 weeks pregnant.  This last trimester has been going by a lot quicker than the first two trimesters.  I'm starting to get a little scared about the delivery and a little scared about spontaneous combustion. 

What do I mean by that?

Well, as you may already know, I have an awesome 5-year-old boy, Joey.  He is my world, and I love him more than anything.  So, I think to myself, how am I going to love this new baby as much as I love Joey?  I feel horrible about it but I just don't understand how it's possible to have THAT much love to give.  I know that I already love this new baby, so maybe it's just happening on it's own, but it does scare me.

I spoke to my wonderful husband, Alex, about it.

"When Joey was born, do you feel like you started loving me less?" he asked.
"Of course not.  I began loving you more because I saw what an amazing father you are," I replied.
"Okay, so before Joey did you ever think that you could love me more?"
"No," I replied.
"Yet, you do."
"Yes," I began to realize what he was trying to prove.
"That is exactly what is happening now.  You don't think that you can love anymore than you do, but you can. It'll come naturally," he said.  Then he gently kissed my forehead and we snuggled together on the couch to watch Hillbilly Handfishin' on Animal Planet.  I was so incredibly grateful to have him with me at that exact moment.

My fears have since been neutralized.  The more I think about this new baby, the more excited I am about feeding him, changing his diaper, and being sleep deprived (which I am now anyway).  I'm realizing that it doesn't mean I'm going to love anyone else any less.  I can have unconditional love for both of my kids and my husband, at the same time, without spontaneously combusting from a love overload. 

It isn't something that I can completely understand, but I don't feel the need to anymore.  I know that it is naturally happening.  And I'm thrilled.

Thanks for listening.

Mortification 101

Today, I decided that I should stop being so lazy and attend a water aerobics class at my gym.  Yes, I did say water aerobics.  It's one of the very few workouts that I can still comfortably do at seven and a half months pregnant.

I met my mother-in-law there.  We use eachother for motivation.  However, today I did more than motivate her, I amused her.

So, there we are in the middle of the class, running in place, bicycling with the help of a noodle, and doing other water exercises.  Most of the people in the class know to be courteous and give eachother space to properly perform all of the exercises.  However, there was one lady that was totally crowding me.  I thought it was odd at first and just tried to ignore her, but it got a little tiring after a while.

Finally, we were performing an exercise where we grab on to a wall and float on our backs to kick our feet.  This freakin' lady doesn't use a wall.  Instead she places the noodle behind her neck and uses it to help her float around while she performs her kicks.  Normally, this would be fine, even though the entire class wasn't doing it this way.  However, as the entire class is floating and kicking, I can see her out of the corner of my eye floating and kicking her way closer and closer to me. 

So, now she is so close that her kicks are splashing water in my face.  I'm getting a little irritated.  She had no common courtesy whatsoever.  Finally, she gets so close that she is literally about to kick me in the face.  I'm fed up at this point.  I gently push her feet away.  She stops floating and faces me.  "Lady, you're so close! You're about to kick me in the face," I say it in my best don't-mess-with-me voice.  "I'm sorry," she says as she moves away and continues her kicks.

The exercise is over with and the instructor asks us to move closer to the shallow end.  I gather close to my mother-in-law and I say, "That lady is so annoying.  Did you see what just happened?"  "Yes, I did," she says with a weird smirk on her face. "What?" I ask.  "Uhm...you know she's blind, right?"

I couldn't believe what I'd just heard!  "Are you serious?"  "Yeah, I'm serious," she said as she started laughing hysterically at the look of mortification on my face.

I behaved myself for the rest of the class and my mother-in-law let out a little laugh every couple of minutes or so.  I was really glad I was at least amusing her.  I felt so bad!  She tried to get me to laugh about it, and I did, but then I felt bad about laughing because the lady was blind.  I just couldn't win on this one.

So this is what I'll never live down...pushing away a poor, blind, old lady in the middle of a water aerobics class.  And why?  Because she got too close to me. Of course, she was getting too close to me!  She couldn't see me! Lovely.  I'm a terrible person.

And now, to take the focus off of what a terrible person I am...here is a random picture.

Oh, and thanks for not laughing at me. (Yeah, right.)