My Bed Killed Mickey Mouse! And Other Not-So-Bright Decorating Ideas for Kids

So I guess the nesting urge has started to kick in. C was a DOLL and removed the queen sized mattress from Em's room this past weekend, to make room for crib #2. I may be jumping the gun a little, since I am only just shy of 20 weeks pregnant, but I've also heard from many sources that if I have enough energy to deal with redecorating and organizing the kids' nursery NOW, I should just DO IT. Because who knows? In a few weeks time I may be feeling like utter crap again, and I don't know if I can (or want to) fully rely on C and Emmy for moving furniture, painting walls, and boxing up old toys and clothes.

In looking for inspiration on how to revamp Em's room to accommodate both her AND her future little brother, I have happened upon some highly ridiculous nursery design concepts, which I would like to share with you, for your amusement:

Um, no thank you. I mean, I LOVE wooden furniture. I just don't love wooden PUMPKIN furniture. Especially wooden pumpkin furniture with windows that hover a good few feet above hardwood flooring. Because THAT, my friends, is an injury waiting to happen. 

I don't watch Sponge Bob Squarepants, but even if I did, I would have to think that my love of Sponge Bob and his zany little friends would not drive me to insanity, which is obviously what happened to this little tike's mom and/or dad. I can imagine the child saying "mommy, I think I have ENOUGH Sponge Bob stuff in my room now," and the mom responding "Oh no, my child. There is NEVER enough Sponge Bob stuff."

Simply because I would not want my child to get a concussion each and every day, upon rising from their bed. See how much I love my children?

This room is like the total OPPOSITE of Sponge Bob room. When I look at THIS room, I imagine the child saying "dada, can't I have just ONE toy in my room? Just one?? I promise I won't actually PLAY with it!" And as if the starkness isn't enough, the forboding existential question mark painted on the wall above the bed is a surefire way to create deep-seeded, lifelong anxiety for junior. I imagine Woody Allen's childhood room may have looked a little something like this.

Emmy loves Mickey Mouse. But nope. Not even if we actually LIVED in Disney World, or were EMPLOYED by Disney World. Not even if our children's room was FULLY SPONSORED by Disney World. Not even if I woke up one morning to realize that two gigantic mouse ears had sprouted from my head.
I think the bed is especially creepy, cause it kind of looks like the bed landed right on top of Mickey Mouse and killed him. Just sayin'.

Stay tuned. I will probably find lots more hellaciousness to share.

Yup. That Was Me. Dancing at a Care Bear Concert.

We had a fantastic family day this past Sunday.

In the morning, we got hopped up on muffins, played outside, and got covered in mud. Em LOVES our garden hose, and enthusiastically helps water our outdoor plants (and our miserable failure of an attempt at a raised bed garden). Somehow, watering the plants always transitions into an impressive muddy extravaganza, resulting in Em looking like a Woodstock Music Festival attendee.

Em then took a bath, and she and I had a nice little walk around the neighborhood. I was then able to coerce Em into taking an earlier nap than usual (both C and I joined her in a little family snooze fest), so that we could all go spend some quality time at the GE-sponsored Kids Day, which was taking place at the Empire Plaza in Albany.   

It was a glorious day out – sunny but not too hot (which seems to be a small miracle this summer), with a bit of a breeze blowing. Many families were taking advantage of the good weather and all the free activities available at the festival, but it didn’t feel overcrowded or claustrophobic (we DID arrive rather late, so it may have been much more crowded earlier on in the day). There was a HUGE line for the balloon sculpting clown - god bless the clown for having the patience to make balloon animals for hours upon hours upon hours -  but luckily Em is too young to really notice or care for balloon animals, and we were able to avoid the craziness. Most other activities had little to no lines.

Among the revelations of the day: apparently our daughter absolutely ADORES human-sized doggies, chickens, and bunnies (and by that I mean the brave/idiotic souls who dress up in heavy costumes on warm summer days and allow kids to hug them, squeeze them, and take endless photos with them). Whenever Em saw a 6 foot tall animal character walking around the plaza, she squealed with delight and said “Emmy wanna touch _______ (fill in the blank with whatever animal she had her eyes on)”. I was a little skeptical of how she would actually behave when we approached the character, but Em was super friendly and sociable, giving “high fives,” and hugs, and even talking to the costumed creatures. It was pretty friggin’ cute.

The headline act of the entire day was a live performance by the ever popular Care Bears (and when I say “ever popular,” I mean EVER popular. Because I am pretty sure Care Bears were trendy back when I was a kid, so many many moons ago). Watching the reaction of all the two, three, and four-year-olds in the audience, I could only describe it as a mini version of Bieber Fever. Children danced, swooned, and cried out as the pastel trio serenaded the crowd with classics, such as “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. If the Care Bears asked the kids to jump, the kids jumped. If the Care Bears asked the kids to spin, the kids spinned.  Let me tell you, it was a good thing the Care Bears did NOT ask the kids to smack their neighbors or throw their parents’ money on to the stage. We could have had a MAJOR catastrophe on our hands.

If you and I had been having a conversation three years ago, pre-Emmy, and you had asked me if I could ever picture myself doing an enthusiastic hokey pokey dance at a Care Bear concert, I most certainly would have laughed out loud in your face. But what can I say? Becoming a mom has turned me into a hokey pokey enthusiast, and a woman who actually kind of enjoys watching pudgy bears dancing on a stage. After all, it makes my daughter happy.  And that’s really my main focus right now.

After we left the Kids Day event, C and I took Em to Hoffman’s Playland, which, if you are unfamiliar, is basically a semi-decrepit teeny amusement park located in back of a car wash business. It’s a local landmark of sorts, and is totally geared towards the 36” – 42” tall crowd. It’s kind of perfect (in a low-culture, just-for-the-fun-of-it way), in that you don’t have to deal with the long lines of a REAL amusement park, and you pay by the ride, so you can go on as few or as many (of the few) rides available without feeling like you have to make your financial investment worthwhile.

So, Emmy LOVES the choo choo train at Hoffman’s. LOVES. The train goes at a speed of about 2.5 miles per hour (I swear I saw ants crawling at a speedier pace), and makes two loops through the park. At a certain point during the loop, the train goes through a teeny tunnel, which the kids are fond of (especially if you make spooky noises to accompany the tunnel’s darkness), but that’s as about as exciting as it gets, folks.

We rode the oh-so-thrilling train ride three times. Three. Long. Times. And I am pretty sure Em would have liked to go on the train another 24 times, had we not bribed her away from the park with the promise of ice cream.

Riding a very very slow mini train six times around a dilapidated amusement park is another one of those things I probably never would have imagined myself doing in my pre-Emmy days. But every time that train blew its whistle, Em jumped up and down in her seat, and looked as happy as a clam. And for that reason alone, I will be returning to Hoffman’s, and that snail-paced choo choo,  at least five or six more times this summer.

Sometimes Choosing a Baby Name is Actually Easy…

I mean, I have heard about the terror parents have gone through in choosing baby names. It sounds very difficult and quite horrible.

Mama wants a cute, hip name that simultaneously honors her favorite childhood rock band AND her beloved grandmother. Dada wants a short, basic name that other kids won’t make fun of (i.e., doesn’t rhyme with “poopy”) and is easy for him to remember. Or maybe vice versa. Either way, the process turns into an argument, which then turns into a battle, which then, after weeks and months of verbal arm wrestling, results in mama getting her way because, after all, she’s the one CARRYING the baby for nine months while dada uses her as a perpetual designated driver. And if mama doesn’t LIKE the baby name, she might just keep the baby inside her FOREVER.

I’m glad to say C and I have NOT had any problem choosing our children’s names.  I give myself a little credit, for having self-edited my list of favorite baby names BEFORE approaching the subject matter with my husband. When I was pregnant with our first baby, I KNEW C wouldn’t approve of “Liberty Moon” or “Everly Song” or “Madly Fawn” or other such beautiful yet slightly crazy names.  But one day, when I was a few months pregnant, I felt good about presenting  C with the idea of “Ember,” as our daughter’s first name, and was pleasantly surprised when C said he actually really LIKED the name.  And that was it. Done deal.

Now rest assured, if my husband had asked that we instead name our child “Pilot Inspektor Riesgaf Lee” (Jason Lee, what were you thinking???), or “Diva Thin Muffin” (Frank Zappa’s poor child… what the heck IS a diva thin muffin anyway? A delicious yet low calorie, totally decked out breakfast treat?), I would have had issues.  We would have had to do some serious compromising. I probably would have promised to do all of the dishes and laundry for 15 years in exchange for NOT naming them some whacky pants name.

(Hmmm… this MAY actually be a good idea for those of you who will be having children in future years. Come up with some totally off-the-wall, nut job name for your kid-to-be, pretend you are ABSOLUTELY attached to the name, and then use that as leverage to get your partner to agree to many years of servitude in exchange for never uttering your suggested name in the household ever ever again for as long as you both shall live).

With our second child, we had our girl name AND our boy name picked out within the first eight weeks of my pregnancy, and no arguments were involved. I swear! We had our boy’s first name “on reserve” from  when I was pregnant with Emmy – it’s a name that C and I both love and agree is strong yet ethereal, and simple but not TOO easy. Our girl name alternative was “Delilah,” mostly based on the fact that the song “Hey There Delilah” was one of the first songs we ever danced to together.  I was kind of looking forward to having a daughter named Delilah, but am totally happy with the name of our son-to-be.

(I can’t share the first name, because even though many of my family members and friends already know the name, there are some family members who are sort of superstitious about this kind of stuff, and prefer to only learn the name upon the baby’s birth. But you can bet your sweet bippy I will be posting our baby’s birth announcement online as soon as my little fingers have access to a keyboard, post-baby birth).

We decided to modify our son’s middle name just a few weeks ago. The boy middle name we had planned for baby #1 was “Ash,” but after having 18 months to ponder that middle name, I began to have doubts. I told C I thought the name was a little on the morose side.  And plus besides, Ash seems like it would be a good name for a contestant on The Bachelorette, but not for our baby.

When my mom-in-law and I were at my 13 week ultrasound together, and discovered we would be having a son/grandson, I told her the name we had picked out for the baby, but that we weren’t too thrilled with the middle name. Mom immediately suggested that we use Henry as the middle name, since it is a family name that has been passed down like a tradition through C’s father ‘s side of the family. I loved the idea, and when I called C after the appointment to ask him if the change of name met his approval, C was equally enthusiastic.

So now we have our son’s name fully picked out, and neither C nor I have any war wounds or scars to show for it. Yay, us!

Now if only we could agree on who’s turn it is to do laundry… J