Seder with a Side of Neuroses

At least we looked cute.

I am completely and totally flipping out about how I am going to juggle having a newborn and a toddler at the same time.  Yesterday was a total sh*t show at Casa Lane, my friends.  As you may be aware, Passover began last night at sundown, so we were scheduled for family seder at 6PM.  Under normal circumstances, this would have been no big deal other than being a half hour or so later than the Muffin Man is used to dining.  However, in typical Jewish holiday style, Noah refused to take an afternoon nap, which meant that by the time he was expected to be on his best behavior for a reading of the Haggadah and a serving of gefilte fish, he was having none of it.  He refused to sit in his high chair, he threw his yarmulke across the room like a frisbee at least ten times, and he wouldn't eat anything other than a few pieces of matzoh.  As I sat at the seder table last night watching my exhausted son melt down over a piece of unleavened bread shmeared with chicken liver, I really did have the thought that I am not up to the task of having two children.  I know that people do it all the time and that some even manage to have two kids, no family nearby and no help, but those folks must be superhuman or something.  I can't for the life of me grasp how I am going to be able to wrangle two children at once.  Just trying to get myself and Noah dressed for dinner yesterday wore me out.  Here's the best part: we didn't even get a chance to eat dinner with the family because the Muffin Man got so tired that he wasn't able to be coerced into silence with YouTube videos.  Yes, the brisket and potato kugel were delicious eaten cold in front of the TV,  but I was so wiped out from our adventures of Passover with a toddler that I fell asleep while eating a macaroon.

We will, of course, manage somehow.  Most likely with the aid of too much coffee and alcohol, but either way it's happening.  I'm sure at some point in the near future having two kids will be the norm and I'll roll my eyes at myself for ever making a big deal about it, but you know I have to be neurotic and overdramatic about pretty much everything.  My therapist claims it helps me "process", which is probably total BS, but it does make me feel better, and that's what I pay her for.

On a related note: is there no child-friendly Haggadah that we might be able to use next year?  I appreciate the free Maxwell House one as much as the next Jewish gal, but it would be nice if one existed that moved things along a bit faster and had cute drawings of animals wearing yarmulkes or something.

Slip Into Something More Comfortable

This is a sponsored post.  I participated in an Ambassador Program on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Huggies. I received product samples to facilitate my review and to thank me for my participation.

Seriously, folks, the Muffin Man is wearing me out.  To be fair, I don't have quite as much energy as usual thanks to the fact that I'm carrying around a developing human and an additonal 20 pounds or so, but my kiddo is so active that chasing after him sometimes leaves me short of breath.  This week his newest trick is climbing - out of the bathtub, onto the top of the couch, from the glider into his crib - so you can imagine just how easy it is to get him to lay still in order to change his diapers.  Oh, and did I mention how strong Noah is?  He's a lean, mean fighting machine, so holding him down while also trying to avoid getting either of us covered in poop is not an option.  Noah does not respond favorably to missing one single second of play time for something as trivial as a wet diaper!  Needless to say, this complicates things, since I really don't have the stamina to overpower a kicking, screaming, 22-pound whirling dervish, yet it's also considered child abuse to leave a baby in a dirty diaper too long.  What is an exhausted and overwhelmed mother to do?  Thanks to Huggies Little Movers Slip-Ons, I now have a solution.

The Little Movers Slip-On diapers are designed just for kiddos like Noah who are extremely active and new to the whole standing/walking thing.  When you have a munchkin who wants to move all the time, trying to get a traditional diaper in place is a real pain in the butt (no pun intended).  It's almost like attempting to hit a moving target with a vibrating gun - not easy.  Prior to discovering the Slip-On diapers we purchased a different brand of pull-up type pants at the suggestion of a Mommy friend who said that they were easier to use on busy little folks.  While the idea was fantastic, those particular diapers were designed for older kids getting ready to potty train, and so they just didn't fit well at all.  I had constant leakage problems and I actually ended up donating most of them to Baby2Baby and going back to my usual brand.  The Huggies Slip-Ons, on the other hand, work really, really well.  We haven't had a single leak, they fit the Muffin Man perfectly, and best of all they make changing him go much faster, as they are pre-fastened, yet the sides open easily when you're ready to take them off.   I've found that they are especially easy to change while he's standing up and distracted by something else, which means he's less likely to land a strong punch to my solar plexus in an attempt to avoid having to lay still.

Now you know that I am all about saving you sheckels here on the ol' blog, which is why I've got a fantastic coupon here for you to save $1.00 on any package of Huggies Slip-On Diapers.  If you share a link with three friends you can save $1.50 on the package, so spread the love and save yourself some coinage.  You do have to register with Huggies.com in order to obtain the coupon, but then you can start redeeming points from all your diaper purchases and eventually you'll earn more coupons and free diapers, so it's pretty much a win-win situation.

In the meantime we'll just be over here at Casa Lane dancing around in our underwear now that it not longer takes three large adults to change one small little boy's poopy diapers.

Get Down with Your Weekend

I can't even tell you how happy I am that it's the weekend.  I'm not really sure why I'm excited considering I have to attend two birthday parties for children and the Hubby is working all weekend, so let's just chalk it up to delusion and call it a day, shall we?

If you're going to Coachella this weekend I think it's safe to assume you have no children.  Seriously, though, wear a hat and put on some damn sunscreen so you don't fry like a piece of bacon out there in the ol' desert. 

Here are a few odds and ends that caught my attention this week:

This piece on how to survive a kid's birthday party is perfectly timed.

I'll be mixing up a batch of toasted coconut margaritas just as soon as I evict Baby #2.

Metal Cats is awesome.

A tumblr devoted entirely to scenes from Law & Order of the characters eating.  Have you seen every episode?

Inappropriate artwork by children is seriously LOL.

Dark chocolate coconut macaroons just in time for Passover 2014!

I'm pretty much in love with Man Repeller thanks to this post.

Feta and lemon dip is so happening this weekend.

How to fold a fitted sheet.

Have a great weekend my lovelies!

xoxo

photo courtesy Thomas Hawk

Your Laugh for the Day

It's been one of those weeks, my friends.  The Muffin Man isn't napping well due to the construction disturbances, the tantrums are happening more and more frequently, and the Hubs is beyond stressed out at work.  Needless to say I am counting the days until I can enjoy a very large, extremely cold vodka martini and not this "one glass of wine a week" BS.

Have you seen this hilarious video?  Those of you with kids will love it.  Those of you without kids will probably never want to have sex again.

Motherhood FAIL of the Week: For the Love of Pens

The Muffin Man is obsessed with pens.  I don't know why he happens to be so in love with writing implements, but given the choice between a fine point Bic and an age-appropriate toy, he will, without fail, choose the pen.  I wish I could tell you that I've been a vigilant parent and haven't allowed him to indulge his marker fetish, but the truth is that I've been pretty laissez-faire about the whole thing and haven't enforced a "no pens for Noah" policy.  I've been careful not to let him have any pens with small caps that could be easily swallowed and lead to a visit to the good ol' Cedars Sinai ER, but I did indulge his proclivity with a perfectly safe, tightly-sealed orange highlighter that seemed to be harmless (i.e. no sharp nibs that could lead to the loss of an eye or an easily removable cap).

This approach worked well for us for a while, as it avoided Noah standing at my desk throwing tantrums while pointing at the pen jar and screaming "mine, mine, mine" or "that, that, that".  I'd actually been feeling extremely proud of myself for my ingenuity in finding a pen-shaped item that kept my son happy but also prevented me from having to follow him around like a low-hovering traffic copter.  Well my friends, as if to prove once again that my Mothering instincts are far below an acceptable, non-danger causing threshold, Monday morning I came this close to having to perform an emergency tracheotomy with a kitchen knife.  Somehow, despite my taping the cap onto his orange highlighter, my child managed to disengage the top and put it in his gaping maw.  I'm not quite sure how I didn't notice that he'd scraped off the roll of tape I'd wrapped around the stupid thing, but in my defense I was only two sips into my first cup of coffee and I am not a morning person.  Thankfully, I did see that Noah was up to no good before he finished his breakfast of marker top, so I leapt to my feet, grabbed him with both hands and performed the incredibly useful "turn them upside down and slap them on the back" maneuver.  (New and prospective parents, if you haven't learned this lifesaving trick I urge you to watch a YouTube video now and practice.  I promise you, it will come in handy, probably more than you ever imagined.)  The cap shot straight out of Noah's mouth like a champagne cork, he screamed bloody murder, and I collapsed on the couch exhausted from my one hour of high-intensity mothering.

Now, of course, I can't allow Noah to play with pens.  Honestly, this is akin to attempting to wean a heroine addict off of the smack.  He sweats, he shakes, he stands at my desk eyeing the cup of pens for hours on end and wailing over the loss of his oh-so-precious vice.  I contemplated letting him have his beloved orange highlighter without the top, but my home decor really can't withstand any more abuse, and I feel as though it's simply enabling his addiction.  So he's been forced to quit the Pentels cold turkey. It's certainly not been pleasant, and I think we have quite a few days of wailing and possible sleep regression in our future, but in the end it will be worth it.  Just as long as he doesn't trade his pen obsession for something even more dangerous; remind me to make sure the baby lock is working on the drawer holding the butter knives.

Casa Construction

Things are a little bit hectic around Casa Lane this week, my friends.  In addition to the usual insanity that is being pregnant and taking care of a toddler, I have construction workers here doing enough repairs to practically build a new house.  Remember when I thought we might have to move out of our duplex because our landlord decided to sell the place?  The good news is that we don't have to move and our new landlady is AH-MAZING.  The bad news is that the place is essentially falling down around our ears and that in order to avoid being buried under a pile of plaster dating from 1922 when the next Earthquake hits, we're going to have to put up with a few weeks of home repairs.

Here's the problem: the biggest repair that has to be done is, essentially, a complete re-do of our bathroom.  While on the one hand I'm thrilled that we will no longer have to live with a tub that refuses to hold water and a cracked toilet (slumlord, anyone?), we have to make ourselves scarce for two weeks while they do all the construction, and by "make ourselves scarce" I mean actually live somewhere else.  Before I had a child I would've thrilled at the idea of a forced vacation and would've spent hours and hours planning some sort of exciting getaway.  Now that I'm the primary caretaker for a small being who doesn't respond well to his schedule being disturbed, I'm dreading our forced vacancy.  Honestly, I can't even get the Muffin Man to nap in the Pack n Play at his Nana's house, so I'm not sure how well he's going to handle having to sleep in the thing at night in a strange location.  I suspect that I'm in for a rather brutal stretch of sleepless nights and a fussy toddler, but at least I'll be able to take a nice, long bubble bath to reward me for my trials when we return.

I wish that we could all hightail it to Hawaii for a few weeks so that at least we would be exhausted in a tropical paradise, but the Hubby is in the midst of opening two restaurants back-to-back and can barely get away from work for a meal and a few hours of sleep each night.  Needless to say he's none too thrilled about our upcoming sabbatical either, but at least he's not prone to tantrums.

So, I'm turning to you, dear readers: what advice can you give me about being away from home with a toddler in tow?  Where shall we go, and how do I keep the Muffin Man from completely falling to pieces?  Should I simply check myself into the nut house now and call it a day?

Get Your Weekend Groove On

Happy Friday, my chickadees!  I hope you have something fun and fantastic planned for your weekend.  Tomorrow morning I'm ditching the kiddo with Gramma and heading out for an all-too-rare brunch with my girlfriends and I'm really excited about it.  I plan to relax, indulge in a mimosa, and enjoy conversing without being interrupted by a toddler.

Here are a few linkety-links that perked my interest over the past couple days:

The horrors of being a Hollywood Personal Assistant has the interweb abuzz.

A cool new paint tool for all of us DIY-ers.

Quinoa burrito bowls are right up my alley.

A better blowdryer is the key to cute hair.  Looks like I need to pick up one of these options.

I'm kind of obsessed with Oh Joy for Land of Nod (ice cream sprinkle crib sheet please).

As a history nerd I loved this story about May Day in New York.

Honey Maid is pretty much awesome (but I still won't buy graham crackers - too much sugar).

This piece about L'Wren Scott's glamorous lifestyle being a sham really struck me.

A bag that charges your cellphone and looks stylish.

Have a great weekend!

xoxo

P.S. - if you haven't checked out my latest piece over on Stroller Traffic or signed up for their awesome daily emails, you're missing out on all things fun, cool and hip for the three and under set!