No more planes for a while

I’m back and we survived. Barely.

Messy boy did amazingly well on the way down to Sacramento. His little eyelids shut themselves on takeoff and didn’t open until about an hour into the flight. When he woke up, he played with pretzels and drank watered down orange juice. Not too shabby for a 14 month old!

My ma ma and fashion-savy brother picked us up from the Airport and we were off to my Grandparents house. Now my Grandparents have lived in the same house for as long as I can remember. I spent summers tanning myself on their back lawn and sleeping in the same hard twin bed, it hasn’t changed. Now I love my grandmother to bits, but let’s put some things out into open, just to clear some things up. According to grandma, Donovan is super cute because all mixed marriage children are. My brother needs to get married before she dies. And I look pregnant.

Yes you did read that last according-to-grandma-factoid correctly. I guess I need to start running again, stop eating junk food, and stop eating PW recipes. Yes to the first, yes to the second, and a HELL NO to the third. I’ll suffer with being fat. Hopefully one of these days I will actually be expecting and therefore looking pregnant would be acceptable. But until then, I’m simply going to work out to compensate for eating good food. I’m not 18 anymore with the stamina of a college soccer player AND I pushed a watermelon out last year. The cutest watermelon you will ever see, so my tiger striped, saggy belly is worth it. Maybe when I’m finished carrying babies in my womb, I’ll work on the getting back to my 18 year old’s body. Yeah right.

Oh yeah, back to the California trip.

We ate dinner with the family at my uncle’s house, consumed calories equal to Bill Gate’s bank account, and drove home with one VERY VERY tired messy boy. He didn’t go to sleep until 11:00, I believe this was the beginning of the end.

We woke up the next day, power showered and went back to my uncle’s for my grandmother’s 3 year service. The minister came to the house and gave a service right in the living room, chanting and all. When I was small, I didn’t understand Buddhist beliefs, what was all this crap about enlightenment and suffering? Now that I am older, I appreciate the traditions and beliefs of Buddhism, even if I don’t practice on a regular basis.

So after some more food with the family, pictures, and feeding my child an entire slice of apple time, it was nearly time to go home.

The plane ride home was HELL.

I mean that in the nicest possible fashion. I love my little man and I am so happy that he charmed up the passengers before getting on the plane because he would have likely ended up tied to the wing otherwise. I’m not going to go into details because it will just make my anxiety rise again, lets just say it took everything in me to remain calm and patient. 1 ½ hour flight and 2 temper tantrums later, we landed in Seattle where Xbox man picked us up and whisked myself and bawling, cranky messy boy home.

I think when we travel to Texas in October, Xbox man gets to deal with Messy boy and I’m going to sit in first class and drink my champagne.

I'm going to need a valium

Its Wednesday. Its not even the end of the week yet. I’m exhausted.

Its not like there is anything stressful going on in our lives, work is still work, home is still home. Messy Boy woke up three time last night. Teething I think. I made caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza last night, ode to Pioneer Woman. I also went to sleep around ten, I think it’s the earliest I’ve gone to bed in the past year.

I don’t know why I am so tired, but gosh darn it, I feel like I could sleep for the next decade! I need to snap out of it, drink some more Starbucks and jump start my ass. This coming Saturday I am going to attempt to take Messy Boy to California with me, a trip consisting of 2-2 hour plane rides. I must be nuts. I must be out of my horse-loving mind. I’m gonna need some coffee. I need suggestions on how to keep Messy Boy entertained on the plane, I REALLY don’t want to be tarred and feathered by my fellow passengers. Preferably these suggestions will not include tying the boy up and gagging him for the duration of the trip; I don’t want CPS called on me either. Messy Boy really is the sweetest boy imaginable. If you haven’t met him yet, he is an angel with liquid brown eyes with eyelashes as thick as a winter storm. I love him with all my heart, but as with all children, he does get loud and he does cry. Both things which are not kosher to most passengers on planes.

Did I mention the TWO hour flight? It could be worse, but with my current level of exhaustion, it still is daunting.

Someone help me. Please. I’m begging.

Ode to Pioneer woman

I am going to take a break from our regularly scheduled blogging to rave about someone who I have come to idolize over the past few weeks: Pioneer Woman.

This woman is fricking genius.

Seriously.

I aspire to be just like her in a couple of years…with a little Asian flavor of course. Though I don’t know if I can quite pull off the fabulous red hair and I’m quite sure that Justin would not appreciate being called Marlboro man. With all that aside, I can rock the stick straight brown hair and call him “Xbox man”.

Sounds kind of geeky you say?

Too bad, I can’t think of anything better. From here on out, Justin will formally be known as Xbox man.

Donovan will hence forth be called “Messy boy”. Simply because he is always in some state of a mess, peanut butter and jelly are the usual suspect. I find things in his hair at bath time that I don’t even remember feeding him. I don’t know where that boy gets his genes from….I’m going to go with Xbox man.

I can’t think of some trendy, catchy name like “Pioneer Woman” for myself. I’ll need suggestions. Until then, I will just sign everything “Sleep deprived, coffee loving, overworked, underpaid, mother of one; formally known as “OH NO!” Please someone give me some suggestions, that’s a pain the patootie to type all of that.

And while I don’t live on some fabulous cattle ranch with horses and dogs, I do live on a quarter acre behind Barnes and Nobles. As for the cattle, I will settle on trying to corral bipolar horse (aka: Sailor), one 14 month old boy, fat cat (Maui), and crazy (Pele). So in my own suburban fashion, I do kind of live on a ranch.

Not really. But I do aspire to be like her. In all her awesomeness.

I’m making red onion and prosciutto pizza tomorrow, for messy boy and Xbox man.

See, its already started.

Signing off,
Sleep deprived, coffee loving, overworked, underpaid, mother of one; formally known as “OH NO!”