and then there were four…

Yes, I’m looking at you, parents who let their kid play with the LAST Brobee stuffed animal in the store, giving me false hope that there was another one, since of course, he is Olivia’s favorite. When I saw your daughter over your shoulder, hanging on to his cute green striped fur, I felt elation at the idea that they were finally out with more Yo Gabba Gabba merchandise. I was excited because I needed something small (ie: inexpensive) that would make for a big impression Christmas morning. I knew that Brobee would do the trick.

When I realized that your little girl must have gotten the last one, I didn’t mind so much because I thought he was going to a good home–she seemed to be excited to have him in her clutches.  I wasn’t going to be THAT parent. Mainly, I was stoked that other folks were purchasing Yo Gabba Gabba merchandise. If it is popular, it will stay on the air, and it is a really fun show.

You can imagine, dear Target shopper, how surprised and happy I was to notice a completely full shopping cart, sitting at the end of the checkout line, complete with a Brobee doll I had not found anywhere else in the store. Oh my elation, dear Target shopper, when I asked everyone in sight if the cart belonged to anyone else, and everyone told me that it had been there for awhile, and I could have whatever I wanted in the basket.

Oh the joy and excitement, because I knew how happy my baby girl would have been to see Brobee’s goofy face staring up at her on Christmas morning. I grabbed him…and immediately dropped him….

Oh fuck you Target shopper. If you’re gonna let your kid suck on a $5 stuffed animal, you could have at least had the common courtesy to buy the damned thing.

Also: the reason prices are so high on stupid shit like candy bars is because dumbasses like you STEAL the freaking candy bars. Yes, eating it while in store and shoving the wrapper in the bottom of your cart is stealing.

Nope. Last week was just hectic: the yard sale preparation consumed me and my life all last week. But now, it’s over. And what have we learned boys and girls? Yard sale folks are kind of scary.

No, not all of them, but a good handful of them are C-R-A-Z-Y.

As I mentioned, I had placed a few ads stating that the start time was 9 a.m. We arrived at Bill’s aunt & uncle’s house a little before 8 to get everything set up. By 8:15 there were people crowding the yard, trying to look into unpacked boxes.

“We won’t be opening up until 9 a.m., please move back so we can have room to put things out.” Bill stated to the mass of folks.

Still, they kept edging up closer and closer, asking me questions “You said you had DVDs and CDs, which ones?” or “What kind of video games?” and my favorite “If I don’t touch, can I look at everything?”

What the fuck people? What part of 9 a.m. don’t they understand?

FINALLY we decided that the only way we were going to get these assholes out of our hair was to stop bringing stuff out and let them get it out of their system. So we opened up at 8:30.

I have never seen such human craziness.

Apparently a lot of people go to yard sales early, buy up the good stuff and take it to the swap meet and try to resell it for more money. One guy couldn’t compete with the young dude who was scooping up everything and got really pissy and said “I was here firsssttt and now he’s just going to sell it at the swap meet, I hope you make a bundle, buddy.” All pissy. He then tried to tell me he would give me $5 for a $15 box set DVD. I explained I couldn’t do it because I knew I could get that for it online. “Well you gotta do what you gotta do and I gotta do what I gotta do.” Which, apparently meant he was going to leave without looking at anything else.

Now, before you accuse me of being a grinch: I COULD have gone down a little on the price. But the box set in question was a cheesy sitcom from the 80s that featured cute little girls that no man in his right mind would be watching. He gave me a pedophile vibe, so I didn’t want to add to his collection. Call me crazy and accuse me of generalizing, but you know, if you act creepy and weird, I’m gonna think you are creepy and weird.

Also: what they didn’t know was that I am selling all of the good stuff online anyway, so there was not much room to negotiate: I knew what people were willing to pay for my goods, so whatever didn’t sell was going to be sold later online. We negotiated a little, but not like most people may have wanted. Whatever, we still sold almost every video game, over half of the DVDs, books and CDs.

There were really creepy guys who kept coming back, almost as if they didn’t have anything better to do than try to have a conversation with someone who didn’t have much an interest in talking to them–because we were too busy to bullshit unless you had a question about something.

I am also amazed at what people will buy. I sold old nail polish. I sold crappy costume jewelry. Bill sold the case to a crappy MP3 player because the guy didn’t want the whole thing, just the case for his cell phone.

It was crazy.

But I may want to do it again, in 10 years: we made a bundle. Much more than we anticipated.

Somebody’s getting a tricked out trike for Christmas. haha

Sophia won last night’s battle. But we shall win the war!

Unfortunately we started way too late to allow her to be successfully “Ferberized” for the night. We were exhausted and she was still fussy, so we decided to cut our losses and try again tonight. Although, I don’t know if I would consider what we do “extreme” Ferberization. I want her to get to sleep on her own, but I am not opposed to allowing her to nurse if she gets up once in the middle of the night. She’s still little. Baby steps, after all.

We started tonight’s journey at 8:35. It is currently 9:06 and she is not as frantic as she was last night, but she is still fussing. I’m holding my own.

I’m keeping busy with getting ready for this weekend’s yard sale that I am incredibly excited about. I’ve posted 4 ads: On Craig’s List, the newspaper, and two yard-sale specific sites. And now I’ve blogged about it. I’m a myspace bulletin and facebook posting away from complete and utter yard sale saturation. So, come, come and buy my stuff. (Seriously, if you want info, just leave a comment and I’ll email it to you!)

Oooh…all is quiet…for a minute. I may need to go check on the Bebeh.

We took the girls to visit Santa today. We had built up the excitement for Olivia, explaining what was going to happen, how it was going to happen and why it was fun. She seemed to alternate between being incredibly excited and incredibly scared. We weren’t sure what was going to go down. Even in line, she was saying she was going to sit in his lap.

But when the time came, she refused and said “I’m scared.” We tried to get her to stand next to him, but when I put her down next to his chair, she inched further and further away until she was too far away to photograph. That was quite crafty of her. And pretty darn cute.

So, Sophia had her picture taken with Santa solo.

Of course I was disappointed, because I wanted to have both my girls with Santa, but I also didn’t want to traumatize Olivia, (not that she would have sat down anyway). Bill pointed out that now we have Sophia’s first photo with Santa by herself, just as Olivia had her first one. I swear, he is always helping me see everything in a different light and making every situation better.

We also decorated our Christmas tree today, and Olivia had fun doing that.

We are currently in the process of sleep-training Sophia. As I type she is crying so badly and I just want to rush in there, but I have to wait 8 more minutes to comfort her. It’s the whole 3-5-10 thing. It worked with Olivia, and I am hoping it works for Sophia. We were going to wait until after I got back from my visit with my family, but we’ve decided it is just getting harder and harder to get her to sleep on our old newborn methods, so she is big enough to get herself to sleep.

It’s so hard. It’s taking everything I have not to run in there, but I know it is better for her this way. She’s in no pain, she’s just pissed that we aren’t running to her.

It’s so painful, I can’t even finish my thoughts right now. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

I think I should just change the name of this blog to “The crazy shit my kids do” because that will give me TONS of writing material. I must say, it keeps me on my toes.

I have noticed, in the recent months, that Olivia’s hair bows have been vanishing. When I put her down for a nap she will inevitably yank them out and I’ll find them on the floor in front of her crib. No problems there, I pick them up and either put them back in her hair, or put them away. But there are sometimes that I will put her hair up in the morning so it is out of her eyes, and sometime during the day I notice her bangs in her face. “Where are your hair bows?” I always ask. “I dunno, I took them out.” Is usually the answer I get. I always try to search for them, but the reality is that I get sidetracked and forget about it, always assuming they will be somewhere on her floor.

Days turn into weeks and I start noticing her hair bow supply dwindling, or I am missing the pink ones or whatnot. So I start searching. I’ll find a couple behind her crib, maybe some in her toy bin, or her closet. However, today I found her secret hiding place.

Meet Beany Boy:

Beany Boy is a relic from the sixties, a doll Bill and his brother used to play with, that was handed down to them from their mother. He found his way into our home and Olivia loves his creepy little self. Our Beany Boy is not in such great shape. He has a broken neck (a “car accident” according to Grandma), so his head wobbles, and his mouth has a slit in it, so you could open said slit and see the inside of his head (see where I’m going with this?).

I picked Beany Boy up today to put him away and noticed a rattle coming from him. “What in the world is in here?” I pry his mouth open and see, to my surprise, Olivia’s hair bow stash.

I pulled out 15 different hair bows, rubberbands, etc., from Beany Boy’s head.

Olivia thought it was quite hilarious.

Sophia has been a bit fussy tonight, so after her bath, Olivia explained the issue.

B: Who is crying?
O: Sophia’s crying.
B: Why is Sophia crying?
O: Because she’s a problem.
B: (laughing at this point) What kind of problem?
O: An orange problem.

There you have it. Sophia is an orange problem.

This may or may not piss off some people, but I feel compelled to write about it, because this bugs me to no end.

I hate the word “hubby”.

Hate it. I cringe every time someone uses it to describe their husband. I don’t know where this hatred comes from, nor do I dislike those people who use the word (obviously, because many of my friends do). I just really really don’t like the word.

I like it less when someone asks me about my husband, ie: “So, where’s the hubby?” BLECH. I am tolerable when you want to call your husband that–that’s your business–but…my husband will never be “hubby”. He’s Bill. He can be called my husband, my spouse, my significant other, my partner, my best friend, my baby, etc. etc.  Hell, I won’t be offended if you call him my “boo”, (I’ll probably look at you funny) but I’m not his “wifey” and he is definitely not my “hubby”.

I’m overreacting, I know. But, it bothers me on levels I do not understand.

Sophia has attachment issues. I went out tonight to do a little Christmas shopping, so I fed her and she fell asleep. Bill said she didn’t sleep long (as usual) and when she woke up she wasn’t too fussy without me. However, after I got back and she saw I was there, she must have realized that I had not been around for awhile and decided that I wasn’t allowed out of her sight for the rest of the evening.

Silly baby! She would fuss and cry until I would come back into her line of sight, breaking into a big grin as soon as she spotted her mama. Makes you feel like the most important person in the world, even if it can drive you a little crazy when all you want to do is pee. But I won’t complain too much, after all, she’ll be a big girl sooner than I care to admit.

Ahh Christmas shopping. We’re trying not to overwhelm the girls with too much stuff, because, let’s face it, they don’t need much and they’ll get plenty of stuff from all the grandparents and relatives. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still gonna do our part, but we can’t justify buying stuff we KNOW they don’t need just to fill some imaginary quota. It’s especially hard to figure out stuff for Sophia. We have all of the main developmental toys from when Olivia was that age, and when you’ve got one ring stacker, you don’t need another.

My favorite gifts are probably those that center around the few family traditions that we have started. Bill and I have gotten each other one Christmas tree ornament every year. When Olivia was born we started getting her an ornament also. Now with Sophia, we’ve decided that we can just focus on getting the girls an ornament, because, that’s a lot of new ornaments each year (especially after we have more children). I’m gonna run out of tree-space. However, the idea is that when each child leaves the ‘nest’ they will be given all of their own special ornaments. I told Bill after the kids were gone, we could resume getting each other an ornament (ha!). I am trying to get ornaments that focus on something our child was really into that year. Olivia is getting an Elmo ornament, and Sophia will get the “baby’s 1st” ornament. My mom did that for us, and I always loved it.

When Olivia was born, I started the “book” tradition. Each child will receive a special, hardcover book for their own personal library. I got a little book-happy on Olivia’s first Christmas (remember, she was 2 1/2 months old) and got her THREE Little Golden Book treasury collections (they were big hardcover books with about 15 stories each). Last year, we got her the Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh, and this year she is getting an “Olivia” book in hardcover. Sophia is getting this one, that looks so amazing. My reasoning for this is to help them build their own libraries. Eventually they can tell me which ones they want, but for now, I’m heaping my own favorites on them.

Tonight, Olivia started a quest to find out the difference between boys and girls. It was very “G” rated, rest assured, but she was trying to discern a difference between boys and girls. She said Sophia and Daddy were boys, and Mama and Olivia were girls. We explained that Daddy was a boy, Sophia, Mama, & Olivia were girls. We went on to tell her all of the family members and whether they were boys or girls.

She seemed to understand. It did get a bit murky when we started discussing which muppet/Yo Gabba Gabba character was which. However, she was very excited when she correctly identified Calliou as a boy, and Rosie (his little sister) as a girl.

I don’t know why it was important, but to her, it was worth trying to change her nighttime routine. Instead of counting with Daddy, she wanted to “say who is a boy and who is a girl.”

Today she also wanted to “dress up like a pin-cess”. My mom bought her a couple of really fancy flowergirl dresses from a friend of hers so she could play dress up. Her reasoning was that she would rather spend the money on actual well-made dresses than the overpriced dress-up clothes you can buy in the toy department. She had a ball, even if the dress was two sizes too big for her.

Sophia has started grabbing her feet in that adorable way that babies do. You just want to nomnom her until she squeals with laughter. Squealing is also something she loves to do as of late. She squeals really really loudly when she’s happy. It’s funny, except when she does it late at night when we want her to sleep. I don’t know why it is so hard to get her to sleep, but she’s definitely a night-owl and wants to hang out with us all night, and sleep in until 10 every morning. This would have been heavenly if she were my only child. But, since Olivia is an early bird and wants to get up at 7:30 or earlier, it doesn’t mesh. We’ll start sleep training after we get back from visiting my family in January. Hopefully it won’t be too painful. I just feel like after her 6 month mark she can get herself to sleep and stay that way for awhile.

I bet ya’ll thought I wouldn’t be posting today. Maybe I’ve formed a habit. Maybe not. We’ll just go with it for now.