The grass is always greener. Er…Shorter.

It is really not his fault. Those damn allergies are to blame. I am sure that if he was allergian free The Husband would mow the yard on a regular basis. I fully plan on doing it myself once The Son can be left inside by himself for awhile. We used to pay someone to do it for us, but of course that went the same way as decent haircuts. I sure as hell am not going to pay $30 for the lawn to be cut, and $4 for my hair.

This has left our yard looking…..horrific. It has not been weed-eated (really? is that a word?) since last year. Tonight as our boys frolicked on The Neighbor’s stunning grass, I took the opportunity to capture the stark differences. Oh, how lucky we are to have such first world problems.

The Boys did a little Yoga while I stared at the Jungle in our front yard.

*Blink* Hey, What the hell just happened!?

When The Son was born he was an eight+ pound, wadded up, wriggly, pink blobby.   He flailed about, and mewed when he was hungry.  I could lay him down and he would, you know, lay there.   That was less than two years ago.  Now he is well on his way to being potty-trained. He speaks in sentences. He climbs.  Oh how does he climb.  If it is possible to scale, he is up it.  If it is possible to climb out of, he is free.

This has posed a wee, okay, a major, problem at nap-time and at night.  Instead of sleeping, he is out of his crib in two seconds and is playing with his toys.  We thought about just leaving him alone, because he can climb back in, but the child has already had one broken arm, we do not want him to get another when he falls of the high rail of his crib.  The Husband took off the side rail to make it in to a day bed.  When The Son saw it he screamed “Broken, bed broken! Broken Mama! Broken Daddy! WAHHHHHHH!”  He was absolutely inconsolable for TWO HOURS.  That may be normal for other kids, but not for him.  He is not a big cryer, and his tantrums usually last less than a minute.  We put the rail back on, he calmed down, and he has been napless for the last few days.   THIS. HAS. NOT. BEEN. FUN.  In fact, this SUCKS.

We tossed around the idea of moving him into a full size bed we already own, but it is just so huge to put him in all by himself.  Wah.  Mama no likey.  So we started googling, and we found this.  Granted, we chose it more for how it looks than anything else, but he loves it, and feels like he helped pick it out.   It has been ordered, and will be here in a couple of weeks.  My baby is not going to be sleeping in a crib.  I was sure that I just brought him home yesterday.  The first night he slept in the crib instead of the bassinet next to my bed I lay on the floor by him and sobbed.  He was just so small!  He was dwarfed in that huge crib.  He needed to be by me! Or better yet, in my uterus.  Sigh.  This growing up thing is not cool.

Here he is climbing, of course.  This time it is a tree.

Psst. Over to the left.

Psst. Hey The Neighbor. Is this yours? Because he seems to think this is his neighborhood. Just checking.

added by The Husband:

Huckablubber Update: week four of six

Eh. Why is this so hard? Why do I have no self control when it comes to eating healthy and exercise? I am not an idiot. I know that if you eat crap you will be fat and sick. I understand that if you never get up off of your ass you will be tired and stiff. I still choose ice cream over veggies. I still pick a nap instead of a walk. I want to win a Zune! But I won’t. Because I make unhealthy choices.

I thought, “Hey, Hey You, if you publish your intentions on the internet, then you will have a ton of people holding you accountable.” It does not work if your support system brings you ice-cream, or makes you banana pudding, or wants to take a nap with you, or comes to visit and brings a ginormas bowl of cookies. Why does my social circle always revolve around food? Why do we invite each other over for dinner instead of something else? Is it everyone? Or are there people out there that do not focus around food the way we do?

I guess this is the week of our contest that finds me feeling dejected. Dejected and lazy. Dejected and lazy and fat. Does anyone have a pep talk for me? Is everyone feeling this way? Maybe I should just go finish off the Phish Food.

Two weeks to go.

The itch you just can’t scratch.

We had a bad day here at the Huckablog World Headquarters. The Son has learned how to scale out of his crib, and has refused to sleep all friggin day. Do you know what happens when he is tired? His head spins around backwards, and he emits screeches that have vultures lining our sidewalk. Days like this are the ones that I sort of wish that I could escape to a job….you know the kind AWAY from my house. The kind that pays more than kisses and stickers.

Then I remember that I had many more bad days at work. I was a stellar employee when I worked for The Heartless Cellular Company. It was mostly because (not being cocky, it was just a fact) I was about ten times smarter than (most, not all of) my co-workers. I did do stupid things. Really stupid things. Things that I should have gotten fired for. Below is an email that I wrote to CAT (she also worked at heartless Cellular Company) while working…..on my company computer….on my work email address.

Hey Girl! Did you have a good weekend? We stayed in all day yesterday because The Husband is COVERED in POISON IVY!! You will never believe how he got it…or where he has it!! Last week I needed to do some gardening and it was CRAZY hot out. All of my shorts were dirty, so I just tossed on a pair of his boxers with a t-shirt. When I was done outside, I chucked the boxers on the bed and The Husband thought they were clean! He put them on, and now has Poison Ivy all over his ass and …..um, boy parts! He is hilarious trying scratch!! LOL. Gotta go, have customer on hold. She is a moron to, I am just going to make something up to get her off of the line –Hey You

See!? Wasn’t I a good employee? Well, Heartless Company thought so because unbeknownst to me they were recording all of my calls and taking screen shots of my computer to use in training sessions. That call had some lady on hold while I was emailing CAT and showed the entire email on a huge screen in front of about 50 people, including my boss. The fact I worked there for another two years after that was a shock to all parties involved.

I think I will just enjoy my boss who does not give a damn who I email as long as I keep the goldfish crackers coming.

To Whom it May Concern: You get what you pay for.

To Whom it May Concern:

I take my family’s follicle appearance very seriously. I also have made the lifestyle changes necessary to make it possible for my family to live on one income. This leads me to you. In exchange for the use of our heads to practice your fledgling skills and four dollars of course, you give us hair cuts. The whole point is that we tell you what we want. You do that. Your professor watches and makes sure you don’t screw up. Simple.  Why did I not think of charging other people for my education?  I could have made millions of….pennies from the people who I had to survey, or write thesis (thesi?) on.

The problem comes when the professor has three other people he is supervising at the same time. And when the professor won’t shut his yap long enough to pay attention to something other than himself. And when the professor has differing tastes in what looks good from the one who is paying aforementioned four dollars. To be honest, I really do not care if you jack up other people’s hair. Maybe the guy next to us liked that slanty flat top you gave him. I do care when it effects my baby’s head.

I said I LIKE IT LONG! I said JUST GET IT OUT OF HIS EYES! The sad thing is that the student did an okay job. The professor walked over, took the scissors out of his hands and proceeded to cut off whole inches of my darling baby’s hair. *sob* You left him looking like a boy. A boy with a bad hair cut. So what are you going to do about it? Glue it back on?

Bah. You suck. I will skip a couple of happy hours at Sonic and pay the eight dollars down the street next time.

Sincerely,

Hey You E. Pissed Off-Huckablog

Before (with chocolate frosting)

After

Okay, not really, but it is still much to short. The Little Deuce Coup pictures were taken post haircut.

Little deuce Coupe

Little deuce Coupe by: The Beach Boys

Well I’m not bragging’ babe so don’t put me down
But I’ve got the fastest set of wheels in town
When something comes up to me he don’t even try
Cause if it had a set of wings man I know she could fly
She’s my little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
My little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got

Just a little deuce coupe with a flat head mill
But she’ll walk a Thunderbird like it’s standin’ still
She’s ported and relieved and she’s stroked and bored.
She’ll do a hundred and forty in the top end floored
She’s my little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
My little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got

She’s got a competition clutch with the four on the floor
And she purrs like a kitten till the Lake Pipes roar
And if that aint enough to make you flip your lid
There’s one more thing, I got the pink slip, Daddy

And comin’ off the line when the light turns green
Well she blows ‘em outta the water like you never seen
I get pushed out of shape and it’s hard to steer
When I get rubber in all four gears

She’s my little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
My little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
She’s my little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
My little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
She’s my little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got

Watch it or Whine: Get Smart

The Husband and I went on a DATE this weekend. I ate dinner without a single person throwing food on me. I had a lovely conversation that was not interrupted by “Do you need to Go Potty?” once. Oh, and I missed my baby SO BAD! When we picked him up on Sunday he said “Hey Mama!” and his face lit up and he had dimples so deep I contemplated growing geraniums in them. I scooped him out of his Pappaw’s arms and took him to their guest room where I proceeded to surgically reattach his umbilical cord. Hah! That is the last time he gets away from me.

To distract myself from the fact that I would have to fill the gas tank to get to my baby, The Husband and I went to go see Get Smart. Have I ever told you about how I feel about Steve Carell? I ADORE HIM. I could watch The Office as a non-stop marathon. Every week. I think he is just so cute, and smart, and lovable, and ahhh *swoon* geeky guys are so my thing. (Have I ever mentioned that The Husband is a computer geek? Lucky me!) *Reeling it back in over here* When I was about thirteen, JHJ and I would walk home from school, make milkshakes and turn on Get Smart. We must have watched every episode at least three times, and it was one of the few shows that we would agree on. As soon as I heard about the Get Smart movie I knew that Steve Carell + 1960’s Camp = A Happy Hey You. Caution: THE FOLLOWING MAY (WILL) CONTAIN SPOILERS! If you don’t want to know then just be assured that I liked it and go see it yourself.

Maxwell Smart apparently used to be a fatty. He drops a ton of weight and aces the test to be a field agent, through a series of events he winds up on a dangerous mission with the ever winsome Agent 99. Anne Hathaway did an admirable job, although I did miss 99’s slinky, low, and sugared “Oh, Max”. She also was much too young, but ya know cougars and all that. They had much better chemistry than I expected, and both had great comic timing (like Stevie Baby could have anything but). There is one scene where they are doing a tango with other partners that will be a classic forever, the rest of the movie be damned. My favorite parts were the ones where they re-visted the classic gags, and this is not the most realistic action movie I have seen, but it was not trying to be Bond or Bourne, it was a loving tribute to the original. It was light, breezy, and fast paced. Alan Arkin is another favorite of mine because of his role in Little Miss Sunshine, and he nailed The Chief. I did not like the portrayal of the president, and did not care for Dwayne Wrestler Boy Johnson, but his character was for bulk, and he was admirably large.

I give it four thumbs up out of five. Or stars, or whatever. I liked it, so go WATCH IT.

Huckablubber Update: week 3 of 6

How’s it going my chubby pals? Is everyone staying on track? Yeah…me either. Today I ate out three times. But on the plus side, I only ate three times. That is good right? No snacking? Anyway, my exercise has been consisting of a lot of swimming, walking, and um, pilates. Has anyone started to notice a difference? I have in one pair of jeans and maybe a couple of bras, but that is all. It did not help when ShoeShe brought cookie/brownie/muffin thingies with her. She looks fab by the way. She has been much better than me obviously. She even ordered a garden egg globy wrap for breakfast. I tried to toss candy in her mouth while she slept, but it did not work.

We have a prize nailed down! First prize is a Microsoft Zune MP3 player. It is to be used for inspiration while working out only. If I find out the winner is just ENJOYING it, than I take it back. Second prize is a Subway gift card of not yet determined denomination. So, get cracking!

This is your last chance to join us, so if you do not either email me or say so in the comments, you will not be eligible. Of course if you have agreed already, than you are fine.
Keep up the good work!

So you may know already, but Chocolate in all forms is my weakness. Here is a recipe for some Low-fat, low-cal brownies. The Son and I are going to try to make these this week, we will let you know how they turn out.

1/2 C flour
1/3 C cocoa
1/4 tap. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

4 oz jar of baby food prunes
2/3 C sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs or equivalent of non-fat egg substitute

Makes 12 Brownies

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray an 8 inch square baking pan with cooking spray.

Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together.

Beat remaining ingredients together, then blend in dry ingredients just until mixed. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges look dry and start to pull away from the pan.

ShoeShe Visits the Huckablogs

Hey You will not be posting tonight as she is busy entertaining ME!!!

It brings back memories of college days…sitting around in pajamas and just being. Wow. Not much has changed in the almost nine-ish years we’ve been friends…except for Hey You has added a husband and the most adorable 2-ish-year-old son (he really is the most adorable and polite child of that age I’ve ever seen, but that of course doesn’t include me).

Though miles may separate us now, I’m always made to feel at home when I’m in Hey You’s presence. Seriously. She didn’t even clean for me (really…you should see the place). But, perhaps that’s because the night we really became friends my freshman year in college was a night not too different from tonight. We were getting ready to leave on a Model UN trip to St. Louis. I had quite possibly the messiest dorm room ever. I had gone through two crazy-ass roommates, and had a private room that I had let go to hell. Seriously. I really don’t remember it even having a path to walk through. You had to walk over clothes and such to get from the door to my bed. So, Hey You came in to help me pack, which was quite an endeavor. What wound up happening is this: Hey You and I were in pajamas talking about everything and nothing all at the same time. She used permanent markers to decorate my classic irreplaceable rare soccer ball (did I mention I loved soccer?) while I tried to find enough clean clothes to pack for our trip. That night sealed the deal.

As I look around trying to find something I could add my personal touch to in the Huckablog house, I am reminded of how long ago that really was. And, the older I get, the more it just seems like “yesterday.” Oh, there’s a nice plate on the wall and a cup of crayons on the desk. I’d better get to work. I’m leaving tomorrow.

By the way, Hey You will have a Read it or Rant, a Watch it or Whine and a Huckablubber update soon!