Muffin (holding his baby sister):
“Madam Poopsalot will be my friend when she grows up.”

Madam Poopsalot:
“Tooooooooooot!”

Muffin (very serious):
“That’s okay. She can poop on me.”

Now that is dedication and enlightenment! I am so proud.

Then I hold my breath and wait for the answer.

Thankfully, so far each time he responds with, “No, I like my crib”. There is in fact a God! We just came back from a 10 day trip to Canada and since Muffin is too big for a pack-n-play, we were forced to go the big boy bed route on the trip.

For the first time ever.

On our “vacation”.

Stupid? Kinda.

The first night we were staying with my friends in Vancouver, where we were sleeping in the same room as Muffin. OMG – nothing to contain him and sleeping in the same room? I knew that was to be a recipe for disaster. The first night went something like this:

8:00pm – Put Muffin and Madam Poopsalot to bed.
8:02pm – Muffin gets up out of his AWESOME Taun Taun sleeping bag and comes upstairs where Mommy, Daddy & friends are trying to eat a kidless dinner.
8:45pm – after taking Muffin back to bed and lying with him a while I go back upstairs to eat my cold dinner and drink my warm wine
8:50pm – we hear strange noises coming from muffin’s room. I go to investigate and find all (and I mean ALL) of our hosts children’s toys scattered on the floor with Muffin in the eye of the tornado, playing happily.

I marched Muffin back to bed and the dance continued for hours. We finally gave up and decided to go to bed ourselves. Muffin was, of course, delighted and still awake and wanting to play. The rest of the night was even more painful. His Taun Taun sleeping bag was beside our blow up mattress on the floor. I closed my eyes and tried not to engage him but he’d come up and try to pry my eyelids open while whispering (within an inch of my face), “Mommy, are you awake? Mommy, are you sleeping? Mommy, let’s play”. Aggravatingly painful – I was so tired and just wanted to sleep!

That night I got about 3 hours of sleep and so did Muffin. As you can imagine we were both very pleasant the next day. Actually, he was fine. Energizer Bunny – remember? I, on the other hand…

Mercifully, that was only for two nights. Then off to my mom’s house where we had a different room for each child and ourselves. This went much better. Though we still had some issues. With no toys in his bedroom at Grandma’s, Muffin now had to be creative.

He dug deep.

About 30 mins after we put him to bed, he comes out of his room and says he’s not tired. Admittedly, in Vancouver in the summertime it is light out until about 10pm, which Muffin is not used to. So, as I gently turn him around to walk him back to bed I see what has been keeping him busy for the past 30 mins. He’s got his blanky and baby bear and puppy and flatopotamus stuffed into his pajama bottoms. Although, not conducive to our tactical plan to get him to sleep, we had to allow ourselves a good laugh and stop for a photo on the way back to bed.

Is your to-do list a bloated scary monster? Mine is. Before I had children, I used to pride myself on how very efficient I was. Now, with two small children I feel like I am constantly crazy busy, yet never get anything done! How is this possible?! Small children require a lot of hands-on, interactive parenting, and while it’s a short-lived job, it leaves little time to accomplish all your tasks. The cherry on top is that you are utterly exhausted come bedtime and yet there is still a mountain of things undone on that annoying to-do list. Parents are multitasking fiends and are indeed a special species all of their own. Homo Parenteous Insaneous Multitaskus.

Enter OneThingToday. It’s an awesome to-do app for the iPhone and the Mac. It helps you to focus on one single goal each day, avoiding the distraction of all your other pending tasks or ongoing projects. You simply assign a single task or project to each day and Git ‘er Done! OneThingToday is designed for people who only have time to tackle one major task each day, and who find themselves overwhelmed by all their pending tasks in their limited time. It helps you prioritize the one thing that is most important for you to complete each day. It is genius in it’s simplicity. As one user puts it, “…you will be amazed at how good you feel as you start to whittle away at what was previously an overwhelming to-do list.”

It is just what I needed! Today, for instance, while wading neck-deep in all of my regular daily tasks, I was finally able to get rid of the bags of clothing I’ve been meaning to take to Goodwill (for the past 2 months) because it was my OneThingToday task. Hooray!

OneThingToday is not only good for Insaneous Multitaskeous, it’s also good for iPhoneus Irritateus, the executive mom or dad. The iPhone app is available at the iPhone app store and the Mac version is available from Line Thirteen.

Full disclosure: OneThingToday is brought to you from your friendly neighborhood biophysicist. My brilliant husband, Dr. McCutiePants, actually developed this software. He’s got a passion for programming. I’d like to think he did it all for me because he loves me so much, but I’m guessing he did it to finally get me to remove all those bags of Goodwill donations from our garage!

WIN IT!

To Enter: Simply leave a comment here telling me what your OneThingToday task would be for the day. Also please specify which app you would like to win – the iPhone app or the Mac version. Winner will be selected at random.

For extra entries:

• If you ‘Like’ Absolutely Delightful on Facebook, you get another extra entry.
• Blog about this giveaway with a link back to me.
• Follow me @AbsDelightful on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway.

Closes July 21, 2010 at 5pm PST

A few weeks ago, I had a couple of fillings replaced at the dentist and I actually enjoyed it! Being able to lie down in the middle of the day and close my eyes for a whole 60 minutes! Uninterrupted! Never mind that that glorious hour also included multiple needle pokes and drilling of teeth. Beggars can’t be choosers. If the baby doesn’t stop crying by 3am, I’ll be forced to begin continue the nightly ritual of chocolate-snarfing in hopes of more downtime in the dentist chair!

Isn’t it?
Right?
I’m right, aren’t I?

Who would think pairing a monster and a nightlight would be a good idea? Apparently Circo does. And my husband.

I sent he and Muffin to Target last weekend to pick a nightlight out because as of the past week Muffin has wanted the lights on when he sleeps. Well, Dr. McCutiePants came back with this….

When questioned by my raised eyebrow, he said that it was the one that Muffin picked out himself and really wanted. Hmmmm, okay. Well, we’ll try it but Mommy is thinking a glowing green monster is not going to help him get over being afraid of the dark. Astonishingly, it did! I thought I’d have to eat my words.

But then Muffin saved me the trouble.

The second night I could tell that there was some unease starting to bubble to the surface. So, that night when I tucked Muffin in, I also tucked Monster in and even gave them both a kiss goodnight.

About an hour later it happened.

I hear a blood curdling scream coming from Muffin’s room. I’m talking a scream that would put Psycho’s Scream Queen, Janet Lee’s shower performance to shame. At that moment, I knew Monster was going back to Target.

Dashing into Muffin’s room, I found him quivering in the far corner of his crib staring and pointing at Monster saying, “He turned! He turned!”. Meanwhile Monster was just staring back with his vacant eyes and sharp-toothed smile. No amount of convincing would make Muffin realize that Monster is in fact friendly. In no uncertain terms Muffin requested that Monster be immediately banished from the bedroom and returned to the store.

Muffin has not asked for the lights to be left on, or for another nightlight since. Thanks Circo, for helping my child resolve his fear of the dark and saving me fifteen bucks.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased with how clearly Muffin speaks for a just-turned- 3-year-old. And you never have to ask him to turn up the volume. It’s always fully cranked. Oh joy.

There have been several embarrassing times that I’ve wished the meaning of his words would have been masked by a not-so-audible voice, but never have I wished this more than last week at SeaWorld. I had to go pee. So, I wheeled Muffin’s stroller into the restroom stall with me and went about my business. While I’m mid-stream, Muffin says (in his sonic boom toddler voice), “Are you going BIG MASSIVE poop on the potty, Mommy?”

Cringe. “No, Muffin, Mommy’s going pee.” To which Muffin replies excitedly, “BIG MASSIVE pee?!!!”

The restroom was packed, of course. I think I may have even heard a snicker or two.

Where is the fine print in the Motherhood Contract, where I signed away every bit of my dignity and privacy? Lately it seems, more often than not, that I have a 38 inch tall shadow (with verbose running commentary) accompanying me wherever I go. Even when urinating, showering, dressing – you name it. There’s nothing like being able to share the running commentary of your pee process in the company of strangers.

Ah Motherhood.

But as my little boy gave me a big, cheeky grin while he leaned back and grabbed his sippy cup with his chubby little hands, I thought, I’d sign all my dignity and privacy away again, just to be known as Mommy to this little guy.

Today I had a sh***y morning. Unfortunately, I mean that in the literal sense.

This morning I woke up to poop.

Now, that in itself wouldn’t be much different from most mornings, except that it wasn’t Madam Poopsalot’s fairly benign diaper-contained infant poop. It was my recently potty-trained 3 year old Muffin’s decidedly adult-like stinky poop. Thankfully he still wears a pull-up for nap and nighttime sleep. However, even with a pull-up the gross-factor remains high. Muffin’s “accident” was made even more unpleasant by the fact that he managed to get a finger in it (by accident he assured me). So, the whole crib was on immediate lock-down and scrub-down…and so was Muffin. Yuck.

With Operation Poop Scour successfully accomplished, I came downstairs to get Madam Poopsalot out of her cradle and she obliged the Baby Poop Gods by wholeheartedly obeying The First Commandment of Baby Poop:

Thou shalt poop in the first diaper just enough to necessitate a diaper change, but reserve enough to dirty the second (or third) diaper immediately thereafter.

Delightful.

Okay, so that’s about enough poop for Mommy to deal with before breakfast, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Madam Poopsalot disagreed.

As we were getting ready to leave the house, she obliged the Baby Poop Gods with The Second Commandment of Baby Poop:

Thou shalt hold your poop until Mom has got you dressed and strapped into your car seat and is about to go somewhere important, for which she is already running 10 mins late.

Today I was the Pooper Trooper. How absolutely delightful.

Upon waking up from his nap…

Muffin: (groggily) “Mommy, I’m a dinosaur.”
Me: “Oh, you’re a dinosaur?”

Muffin: “I’m a T-Rex!”
Me: “Oh wow! A T-Rex!”

Muffin: (very serious and softly) “Dinosaurs need kisses.”
Me: “Oh good. Because I love kissing dinosaurs.”

*Swoon*. I am so lucky and so very grateful for my children.

I recently recognized and admitted that I have become a Bumbleride Addict. Before I had kids, the addiction was limited to shoes. Oh, how I love cute shoes! It’s actually quite a ridiculous addiction for me to have now that I am a San Diego SAHM and I really just mostly wear flip flops…but I do enjoy gazing upon my fantastic and somewhat dusty collection of fabulous shoes. Once I had my first child, my stash expanded into baby carriers. And then, of course, there is, my much beloved stroller collection…

I do appreciate a beautiful and functional stroller. You know how a guy’s head turns when a gorgeous girl walks past? Well, that’s me with strollers. Oh yeah. I’ve practically given myself whiplash on more than one occassion, when a sweet ride has caught my eye. I’ve even gone out of my way to do a stroller “drive by” to find out the brand. I am helpless when confronted with a particularly sharp-turning swivel wheel or a blissfully easy one-handed fold. I’m a sucker for sleek lines. I am paralyzed by beautiful fabric. I am a complete basket-case over a big and accessible basket (tee hee, get it?). I swoon over an adjustable handlebar. And I am rendered positively powerless by a ride so smooth you can steer with one hand. These are just some of the many wonderful characteristics of the Adonis that is the Bumbleride.

My collection currently consists of three strollers. My favorite: The Bumbleride Indie Twin; My first: The Chicco Cortina (travel system); and My Jogger: The Bob SUS. I used to L-O-V-E my Bob but now that Bumbleride has entered my life, Bob has sadly become the proverbial red-headed step-child. For the record, lest I offend anyone, I love red-heads and I am partial to step-children, as I was one…more than once. Anyways, now I think I want a Bumbleride Indie to replace my Bob SUS stroller. I’m always surprised and somewhat impressed that families can get away with owning just one stroller, but with Bumbleride I almost get it.

I’ve received a lot of emails and questions about my Bumbleride posts, Hi My Name is J and I’m a Bumbleride Addict and Bumbleride Solves Double Stroller Dilemma. Choosing a stroller is serious business. A stroller is a vehicle for your most precious cargo and so we Moms need something that is going to be safe. Also, a stroller helps us get from point A to point B and get our seemingly endless mountain of tasks accomplished (hopefully). The Kingdom of Mom is full of enough obstacles and road-blocks; we don’t need our stroller making things more difficult, rather we need it to be super functional and help (or at least not hinder) us as we go about our daily business. Sounds like I put a hefty role on my stroller, doesn’t it? Indeed I do. Kids have a mind of their own and give us enough grief that I don’t need my stroller to be of the same beast. A stroller must be tame and help me navigate through my day without making me crazy in the head. Some strollers are so awful and so horribly annoying that I’d rather just do without and carry both kids. And my many bags of groceries. While I walk 3 miles. In the snow. And poke my eyes out. Get the picture?

Seriously though, I spend so much time with a stroller that I need to “love the one I’m with”. Fortunately, I don’t personally own any strollers that make me want to poke my eyes out but I am becoming disenchanted with my Bob SUS. There isn’t anything super wrong with it. I just fell madly in love with my Bumbleride Indie Twin and all it’s features that I didn’t know I was missing before. So, now I am looking squarely in the face of an adulterous love affair with the Bumbleride Indie. Sorry Bob. It’s not you, it’s me. I met someone else. I didn’t mean for it to happen.

Okay, so anyways, to the grit of this post. Momma’s, you asked lots of questions and I will attempt to answer them. I too was curious about the changes to the 2010 model – specifically, how the 2010 Indie differs from the 2009 (I have the 2009 Indie Twin). I did some due diligence and this is what I’ve been able to determine:

Some nice changes have been made to both the 2010 Indie and Indie Twin strollers. First, Bumbleride has brought back the bumper bar. This time, however it is a multi-purpose, adjustable bar and the cover can be removed to use it as a universal infant seat adapter bar. It can also be used to attach the snack tray fabric which is sold as a separate accessory. I’m not sure that I understand Bumbleride’s snack pack. Why is it fabric? Kind of knarly. However, people seem to love it so maybe I’m missing something? Anyways, the 2010 line also comes with a $20 price increase but this seems really minimal and reasonable to me when you consider that the bumper bar is now included (it was an optional accessory for 2009). I absolutely love that Bumbleride doesn’t make you pay extra for the infant car seat adapter (like some other companies do). They win huge points from me on that one. Another change to the 2010 model is that the handlebar adjustment mechanism has been moved to the inside of the handle to make it more ergonomically easy to adjust. Also, the peek-a-boo window on the top of the stroller canopy has been changed from plastic to UV mesh. Lastly, Bumbleride has made the canopy even larger so that it now provides an additional 9 inches of sun protection. Plus, the canopy can now fold forward more and goes all the way down to the bumper bar!

Based on these changes, Bumbleride must take their customer feedback very seriously. The newly improved 2010 line makes me swoon over the Indie even more than before.

Okay, so I don’t want to be a Brag Hag. You know, those moms that boast and brag about their wonderful perfect children so much that they ultimately get black-balled from mom’s groups and play dates. Oh yes, they do. They just don’t know it.

All moms have a little Brag Hag in them, especially moms of children under 1 years old. There are just so many milestones during that precious first year. And let’s face it – babies are just so freaking cute!!!! I really don’t want to be one of those women, but right now I can’t resist my inner Brag Hag. She’s taken over my keyboard.

This weekend, Dr. McCutiePants and I went on a date. Gasp! Yes, we actually did. It had been a month, which sadly isn’t so long for us. We didn’t go on our first date after Muffin was born until he was about 7 months old. Anyways, back to the story. We were sitting on this nice patio enjoying our lunch when Madam Poopsalot began to cry. Oh yeah, did I mention that our “dates” are with baby still? Kind of a bummer, but she’s just too young to leave with a babysitter still. Especially when you consider that the babysitter also has her hands full with Monster – er, I mean Muffin. Anyways, Madam Poopsalot began to cry and so Dr. McCutiePants took her out of her stroller and began bouncing her on his knee while we finished our lunch. Well, as soon as she came out for all to see, we had a line of people coming up to us commenting on what a cute baby she was. One woman who had just entered the restaurant b-lined it to our table and said, “Wow, she is so cute. I haven’t seen a baby that cute in a very long time!” Oh yeah, I was beaming. Proud Mamma. Why? It’s not like she got up and started walking at her tender age of 4 months (3 months adjusted!). It’s not like she opened her mouth and suddenly started talking. No, she just sat there, bouncing on her father’s knee, looking like the cutest sweetest baby that anyone has ever seen. Ever. Crooked head and all.

Okay, okay. Full disclosure. Her Friar Tuck ring of hair was hidden as she leaned against her daddy. So what. Still counts! Tee hee!