Hey, hey! Back again!

How’s the party? Hope you’re getting around (in a good way) and mingling. I’ve been working for a bit on this and this today I tell ya, I am soooo worth hiring. You’d be very well taken care of and for a great price too. Are you tempted? … now I am off to mingle. All work and no play make me want to drink more.

:::

Carter and I had a play date this afternoon with my friend from work and her little boy. So fun. Drank (more) wine and gossiped while the boys played around each other. Since they are both a little young grasp the concept of playing together, they kinda play in the same vicinity which is fine by me.
It’s amazing to see the difference in social skills between the two. Carter is a daycare child and her son stays home with her husband. Her son is an absolute doll and perfect in every way, there’s just this difference in the way they interact with their surroundings. They are 3 months apart in age, which I think, also still plays apart even though the developmental gap is closing.

While driving home from my friend’s, I was thinking about the Cocktail Playdates. Now I, personally, don’t feel guilty or like I am neglecting my child if I sit to have a drink with a friend while in the same room as our children playing. I don’t want to get started on this topic; it’s beating a dead horse as far as I’m concerned. It’s been bludgeoned by now actually.
But I was thinking about the perception we are giving others. When I blog about the fact that I had a drink with my friend, do people assume that I am neglecting my child for a chance to socialize with friends or that I am a bad parent because I chose wine over Diet Coke?

When Carter was a mere 7 months old we met frequently with a mom group. We were a bunch of moms on Maternity Leave and met while taking a baby yoga class. When the class ended we decided to keep seeing each other.
Every week we would rotate houses and have snack and drinks (never alcohol) and chat while the kids played (if you can call it that at that age). One Monday we decided to get out and went for a walk by the lake. We ended our venture at a restaurant/pub and we all had a drink (alcoholic).

I never thought anything of it, until my drive home today.

Six moms with children in strollers, all under the age of 8 months. In. A. Bar.

I can hear the whispers now.

My mom and step-dad are big on saving money where they can. Really, who’s not wanting to save a penny or two? And they recycle; recycle e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. The Kleenex boxes are broken down and the plastic thingy that hold the tissue is even ripped out. It’s something they are proud of and take rather seriously. I don’t blame them really; it’s excellent practice and I wish that more people (myself included) were so diligent. Even though I was scolded and forced to pull something recyclable out of the garbage and into the corresponding receptacle - disgusting - I still pick and choose what I feel like recycling. I know, Haley-O is on the verge of a heart attack this very moment.

My parents were also big on hanging the laundry outside. Now, this I would do provided I actually had a clothes line. Don’t think my neighbours wanna see my husbands drawers draped over the top of the backyard fence… nor do I for that matter. I remember how great it would be to have my freshly washed and dried (outside) clothes. To raise them to my face and breath in their freshness. So wonderful.

The part I didn’t enjoy? Still to this day makes me cringe? Bath towels hung on the line; and bedding. Yuck. The LAST thing I want is to get out of a nice warm comforting shower to a crusty sand paper-esque towel. *shudders* Yeah, it may smell nice but freshly grated skin from the friction of the towel does not. My mom was big on this. There’s a simple remedy really, put them in the dryer for a couple minutes after bringing them in - just to soften them. Nope. Not this lady. That would defeat the purpose.
I just dread going to my mom’s in the summer time because I KNOW that the towels will be hard.

So, now I am anti stiff and hard (hee hee) towels and any linens. I like other stiff and hard things though… SICKO!
We bought these bed sheets last year. Really funky colourful stripes. They so cute - to look at. No matter how many times I wash them they feel like sand paper on my skin and unfortunately have been banished to the spare room. But these other bed sheets? To. Die. For. Bought them at Costco at Christmas time. They are microfiber fleece. They are practically orgasmic they are so soft.
I felt that we were in desperate need of new bed sheets since my fleece one were getting pills from being used to often, and the pills begin to feel like sandpaper. That’s a no-no. So, I was walking down the aisle and feeling all the sheets. I would open the bag and shove my hand between the layers of sheets and rub it back and forth. (Bet you’re hoping you don’t shop at the same Costco as me. And if you do, you’re hoping that you washed your new sheets before using them!) So, I would rub back and forth to see if they were sufficiently soft, then move on to the next bag and so on.

Until.

I met them. The sheets from heaven. Literally.

They are soft as a newborn baby’s bum (but not the one growing on my face).

I was rubbing back and forth in the aisle of Costco and then rubbed them on my face and moaned. I was moaning in the aisle of COSTCO!
Mike came around the corner just as I opened my eyes, he looks at me and looks around to see if anyone just witnessed what I had done.

Then as if it was nothing he says, “Guess you found ones you like? Put ‘em in the cart.”

I love my husband.

Even if they were a million dollars, I bet you he still would have paid for those sheets after all that moaning.

As many young adolescence I was blessed with unfortunate acne problems. I had really bad acne. Not the huge pulsing kinda; you know the ones with their own heart beat? Yeah, none of those. Just small and consistent. Always there, always visible and never ending. I was about 15 when enough was enough. The time in your life where everything and anything is life altering and completely over emphasized. Acne for me was a life or death situation; I was miserable, and everyone around me suffered because of it. Oh the drama! I was so melodramatic during the whole ordeal really.

Lucky for me my mom was very supportive. I think it was primarily for her own sanity, but we’ll go with it, m’kay? She made doctors appointments for me, tried various acne topical solutions and medications which only decreased the severity to an extent. As a very impatient teenager that was NOT enough. I was livid and all, why me!? why is this happening to me? I hate life. I hate this. Kill me know!

My mom must have hit her breaking point. It was either throttle me and put and end to my drama queen antics or put out the big bucks for Accutane. Acctane is a severe form of acne mediation with likewise side effects; did that matter? Nope. I didn’t care. I wasn’t disturbed by the fact that it required quarterly blood tests for liver damage and the risk of depression or other side effects including, but not limited to dryness of skin, lips and mucous membranes, skin fragility, skin peeling, rash, nose bleeds, dry eyes, eye irritation, conjunctivitis (pink eye), and hair thinning.
None of that was a concern to me. Apparently I thought my acne was bad enough that I could (and would) suffer through losing my hair with my skin flaked off all I while I had pink eye and nose bleeds! MUCH more attractive if I do say so myself. All that would have been better then acne? What a moron.

How could I have thought that acne was that bad? The risks I was willing to take to get rid of a couple bumps on my face.

Then this morning.

I woke up to a visitor.

A pimple the size of a newborn on my chin.

Mike has been begging to pop it all day.

I think it may have its own heart beat. Seriously. It just might this time.

I’m a Top Mama today! Come check me out! Help me stay a top mama by clicking on my picture and get me some points! I wanna stay on the front page! Pu-lease!

I look like this (on the best of days).