This morning Muffin was decidedly not absolutely delightful.

Every step of our morning was a battle. I was already feeling weary by 8:30am, when we got in the car to go to baseball camp, where I was absolutely delighted to unload him.

Things were better after I turned on the car radio to drown out his whining. He starts bopping and singing and I start smiling, giving myself kudos on how I brilliantly redirected his annoying behavior. Then it happens.

Out of nowhere, my cute little cherub bleats out “DAMN”! Then before I can get my wits about me, he does it again! “DAMN!”

Really? Did he just say that? Twice!

“Where did you hear that word?”, I asked. “I don’t know. Damn!”, my 4 year old songbird bleated again.

At this point I explained to him that “Damn” isn’t a nice word for a 4 year old to be saying and that he should say darn instead.

“But that’s not what the song says, Mommy. La la la, DAMN!”, he sings happily.

“No, way Mister. This song certainly does not use that word.”, I state (with conviction).

“La La La, DAMN!”

Stop doing that!”, I growl.

The song ends and he switches from profanity back to whining, continuing the theme of the morning. As I drop him off at camp, I give him a lecture on turning his attitude around, which I am sure is falling on deaf ears.

As I’m leaving camp, the same song comes on the radio. Sure enough there are several “damns” in the damn song.

Oops.

When I come back to pick him up I see that he’s delightful with his coaches and fellow campers. Oh good! His mood must be better now, I think.

Really, Rookie?!

Really?

Have you learned nothing in 4 years?

As soon as I get him away from the field he’s once again reverted to whiney (I think it’s reserved for mommy – I feel special). As I’m trying to get Muffin and his little sister into the car, he’s being extremely uncooperative. “Please get into the car.”, “No, don’t climb through your sister’s side.”, “Please sit in your car seat.”, “No, don’t reach into the middle console – there is no candy.”, “No, you may not have candy.”, “Please get in your car seat, NOW.”, “Get in your car seat!”, “IN YOUR CAR SEAT! NOW!”

So then he replies, “I’m too busy!”

What?!?!

“No, Mommy. I’m too BUSY turning my attitude around.”

Evidently.

If this isn’t a clear illustration of fashion genius, I don’t know what is.

Typically I choose the daily dress for my little Muffin Man, but clearly I should be letting his inner fashionista shine through. For this delightful ensemble, he whipped off his pants, turned his shirt backwards, put on mommy’s boots and…wham! Fashion brilliance.

Recently Muffin has started to become particular with what he wears. For a long time, I used to be able to dress him in whatever I wanted and he wouldn’t say a peep. Except for that one time when he was a toddler and I tried to put a jean jacket on him and he shrieked, “No pants! No pants on my arms!!!!”

ge·nie (jee-nee)
noun

1. A servant who appears by magic and fulfils a person’s wishes.

Diaper Genie. The name is somewhat misleading, is it not? No Genie pops out of it and miraculously saves you from changing that 4th poopie diaper of the hour. Nor does a Genie pop out and enchant your screaming-red-in-the-face baby into a quietly-cooing-smiling-absolutelydelightful cherub. No. What you do have is a huge pile of crap sitting in the corner of the room. A giant feces sausage waiting to be emptied every week. So, in addition to being the Laundry Fairy, I guess I’ve also become the Diaper Genie. Joy.

Then I realized how far a marathon was.

And how close 30 years old was.

Well, now at over30yearsold, I have been inspired by my friend who is running her half off, training for a half marathon. And doing awesome, I might add! So, now I’m training for a half marathon myself! I’m not sure I’m actually going to do the half marathon, but I want to train for it and know that I can run one.

Yesterday a 5 miler was on the training schedule. And not only did I complete it – I felt great doing it! It’s the fathest I’ve ever run before. Huge hills. I went 5.09 mi (yes, I do want accolades for the .09 mi extra) and did it in 51:25 minutes with an average pace of 10’06″! This was the end of my second week of training! I know some of you may be thinking 5 miles is nothing and a pace of 10′ is lame, however I am so proud of myself because I started out two weeks ago at an average pace of about 12′ per mile and that was for a 2 mile run with only one average hill. I don’t have a running partner but my Nike GPS app is my running partner and it’s awesome. It records all my stats so I can track myself and compete against myself. In order to keep to my training schedule, I have even gone out running occasionally with Madam Poopsalot (who is now 20 lbs) in the single Bumbleride stroller. I have always seen myself as a slow runner person who sometimes runs. Now I am becoming a runner and I’m proud of myself!

And this brings us to the title of this post…

About midway into my run, I passed a snail. About 3 miles later I passed the same snail. Mr. Snail had only gone about 1/2 a foot in his journey, while I had run 3 miles during that time. So, it’s official, I am now faster than a snail. Wooohooo!

What could bring me out of this blogging sabbatical? Unfortunate straw placement, of course.

Note the straw placement. Note the look on Buzz Lightyear’s face. Note where one would put their mouth to actually use the cup. Obviously there was someone in the design department at Disney who had to approve this design. Obviously that someone no longer works for Disney.

Anyways, I recently read that she is a regular at the classes at the Physique 57 studio in NYC. I suppose that NYC is a tad out of my fitness radius, but Physique 57 does have a workout video and guess who is now the proud owner of it?! Oh, yeah! Goodbye Butt by Nutella!

The goal of the Physique 57 workout is to really fatigue the muscles by working them with small isometric moves and then stretch them out. The way the muscles are worked and then stretched is supposed to give you long lean muscles, like that of a ballerina. All you need is a high-back chair, light weights, and a playground ball. The video moves quickly with very little downtime in explanation, which I like. The burn is pretty intense.

Even Muffin likes the videos. Here we are doing the Arms & Ab Booster.

Unfortunately, Muffin’s interest lasted about 60 seconds and then he was climbing all over me, making completion of the video impossible.

This reminded me of a story I recently read about a woman who survived a MASSIVE poop blowout (of the 10 month baby variety) 30 mins into a 5 hour flight. She had no change of clothes for the baby and no extra diaper! All she had were a few wipes in her diaper bag. She ended up using an air-sickness bag to store the poop-filled pants and fashioned a diaper out of three expertly tied napkins from the first class cabin. She found two sanitary napkins in the lavatory and lined the inside of the make-shift diaper with one and then used the other sanitary napkin to “duct tape” the “diaper” closed. Amazingly, the diaper stayed on and dry until landing…that is until her baby then peed through it and all over her. But she was in the home-stretch.

Tampons for juice spills. Menstural pads for make-shift diapers. Barf-bags for poopy clothes. These are the essential tools in child-rearing. Who knew?! It is an accepted idiom that necessity is the mother of invention, but I’m of the opinion that mothers are the mother of invention.

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen has again created a backlash by her recent comments on motherhood and child rearing. If you are a mother of a newborn baby, and not breastfeeding, Gisele thinks that you should be imprisoned immediately and forced to hand your baby over to the nearest wet nurse. Or something like that.

Bundchen reportedly told Harper’s Bazaar in an interview, “Some people here (in the US) think they don’t have to breastfeed, and I think, ‘Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?’ I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months”.

Hmmmmmmm. While I am a breastfeeding propenent, I can certainly understand why she has pissed off many, many mothers with this comment. I would love to see breastfeeding friendly laws go into effect everywhere, making it easier for mothers to breastfeed. However, forcing mothers to breastfeed is not something I can get behind! While the positive effects for both baby and mom are indisputable, I think breastfeeding should be a personal choice. I think it was an insensitive comment on Gisele’s part.

This is not the first time she has done this. Some mommies already had their Spanx in a bunch after Gisele’s recent Vogue cover story, where she talked about her maternity weight gain and how quickly she lost it, saying, “I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals. I was mindful about what I ate, and I gained only 30 pounds.” Well isn’t Gisele wonderful.

Oh, and also, her 8-hour natural birth didn’t hurt at all, “not even a little bit.”

Back in March I courageously admitted that I was a Bumbleride addict and professed my love and decided to leave Bob (that’s “Bob” of the stroller-variety).

Well, this weekend something happened and I thought our torrid love affair may be over. For months I have been somewhat annoyed by the fact that the “crotch-pad” (for lack of a better word), the cover that slides over the belting system at baby’s crotch, keeps slipping off every time my preschooler gets out of the stroller. It’s not so bad with the baby’s exit because I am taking her out, but my son just slides out and with him goes the crotch-pad. I have been thinking for a while now that this is the one flaw of the Bumbleride Indie and Bumbleride Indie Twin and have been annoyed each time it happens. However, the infraction wasn’t enough to end the love affair altogether. You know, it’s kind of like how a husband’s weird quirk grates on you…like how when he flosses his teeth he licks the flossed bits off the floss! Ewwwww! Well anyways, my point is, while it’s highly irritating it’s not anything to get a divorce over.*

And this crotch-pad thing is kind of like that. However, on Sunday the “floss” finally almost broke the Bumbleride Addict’s back. As I was outside of Von’s I let my son out of the stroller and we go in to shop. After shopping, I go to put him back in the stroller and notice that the crotch-pad is gone! OMG!!!! A tragedy of epic proportions!!!! Okay, so some of you may say, “Big deal!” but for someone who has OCD tendencies towards her strollers I freaked! We spent 20 minutes retracing our steps and asking at the lost-and-found but there was nary a crotch-pad to be found. I went home dejected, completely annoyed, and with a few choice words for Bumbleride (and myself)!

Fast forward to this morning when I called the San Diego office of Bumbleride. I told them how I had lost the crotch-pad because it falls off so easily and asked if they could please send me a replacement. “Of course”, they said! They would be happy to! The woman was so nice and friendly and she even told me how to prevent another loss! I told her how I had been thinking of jerry-rigging the stroller so the crotch-pad would stay put better but hadn’t yet gotten to it. She suggested sewing some tacking into the back of the crotch pad to connect it with the strap inside. That way the crotch-pad (or “belt- cover” as Bumbleride more eloquently calls it) can still be easily removed for washing by simply cutting the tacks.

So, in addition to top-notch strollers, Bumbleride also has top-notch customer service. I am impressed and still deeply in love.

*Dr. McCutiePants no longer does this. Once I pointed out the sheer grossness of it (and refused to be within sight or sound of him when he flossed his teeth) he quickly changed his ways.

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.