Baby or Kentucky bluegrass?

As mentioned in an earlier post, we are currently in combat with our lawn/weed forest. We've been going back and forth about killing everything alive and laying sod, or keeping up the vigilant weeding and watering program that only seems to encourage more crab grass and other unwanted weedy things.

We ultimately arrived at our decision to sod when Josh asked his mother to come by and give us her best impression of the weed situation of 2010. I watched the Barb drive up, get out, and received my answer only seconds later as I watched her laughing to herself about the state of our weed farm. Since Barb found the dandelion haven to be more funny than anything else, we put on our brave faces and have decided that ripping it all out and laying sod is the only non-funny solution to this weed epidemic. I'm only sort of sad about it. If I really try to be honest about the whole situation, I never believed we could revive Carlos' yard. Not like Josh did, anyway. Every day he would look at the yard and would come inside with the same conclusion. "Seriously, I think there's grass growing!" Josh's optimism was helping him see dandelion heads and sprouts of strangler vines as infant grasslings. If only.

But it shouldn't be too bad, only too expensive. It really is a difficult decision, especially since we've taken a chunk out of our savings to buy a house, and we were planning on buying another baby at the end of the summer (remember how we have to do fertility stuff to get pregnant? I do.). I guess we'll just buy a lawn instead. It makes sense if you really don't think about it.

Carlos

Warning, if you do not care about my house, please stop now. I will now proceed to post 5 billion pictures of nearly every room in my house. Be glad it isn't a huge house. I am. Oh, and if you're concerned about the bare walls, just know that Josh is too. He keeps nagging me to hang stuff up, and I keep nagging him to stop nagging me. I've only just decided to try and see who goes insane first from all the nagging.

I'd like to start out with this picture, since it is the reason for living, according to me. This is a picture of my closet. My very own closet. In my room. I don't have to share with Josh. He has his own, too. And we put built-ins in. I love them. Sometimes, I just open the closet and admire it. Needless to say, Josh's closet is a lot neater. Kudos to him and his OCD.

This is our master bath. Yes, we're sick of the color scheme as well. We've had it for 5 1/2 years. Shoot me, please.
I am no good at taking pictures. This the master bedroom. Unlike this picture, the bedroom is actually quite large. There are two closets (if you missed the importance of that, please see above).

This is Rip's bathroom that he doesn't use since it's only a shower and he is unwilling to take showers at this point (so lame). There is a sink and vanity straight across. Imagine it. It's wonderful, I'm sure.

This is Rip's room. He also has a closet, but quite a bit less magnificent than ours. No built-ins, ya see.

Here is the kitchen. Nothing to write home about, but nothing needing dramatic cosmetic overhaul, therefore, exactly something to write home about. I correct myself.

Here is the living room. Not a great picture or angle, but Josh didn't send me the other pictures I took, so here is what you get. You're missing the best part, though. A black console table that has become the apple of my eye.

To the basement!

The basement living room. Bare, yes? Unfortunately, our basement will remain bare. We have no desire (money) to change this fact. We are currently investing any extra dollar into the plague that is our yard.
Downstairs hallway. Large, spacious, and a complete waste of space. Sounds like someone I know.
Basement bathroom that only gets used every other millennium. That being said, we really need to put in the shower curtain, towel bars, etc. etc. etc. Or maybe invest in some blinds. Nah. It's a nice little surprise for anyone brave enough to peek down there.

The laundry room, or lack thereof really. More like the laundry closet. Oh well. This infuriates Josh. Considering he does a good chunk of the laundry, I tolerate his contempt for the laundry facilities.

Basement bedroom #1 / laundry room.

Basement bedroom #2 / Josh's office that he never works in but works on the kitchen table instead, claiming that he likes to be close to Rip and me. I'm suspicious he just likes to be around when I'm making food so he can bum some lunch from me.

Basement bedroom #3 / Rip's playroom that doesn't actually have more than 5 toys.
There. You've met Carlos (the name of our house). Someday, I will post a picture of the outside, but probably not for a long while since we're in the process of destroying the entire plant life. I'll let you know how it goes.

Assault

I've been staring at this picture for the last 30 minutes, and laughing my head off. Thanks Dayna, for sending these to me. The reason it's so funny is twofold. One, Rip is going to punch her unless she starts kissing him back, and two, she is absolutely horrified by the assault. You can see her tiny fist trying to fend off the beastly boy, but really, when Rip wants something he typically gets it. Poor Jayne. She never stood a chance. He really does love her, though. She, on the other hand, finds him to be overbearing (wonder why...) and slightly overweight. Needless to say, she is not impressed by his aggressive love act. I can't say that I'm too surprised though. There's very little gentle snuggling going on in our home. We show love by throwing him 50 feet in the air and then smooching his face all over. So, really, this is Jayne's fault.

And here is a picture of all the babies of the mom lunch group. I wish Rip would have participated willingly, but after we plied him off of Jayne, he made a conscious decision to not cooperate.

SCR -Stomach Content Removal

Several things have been on my mind as of late. Nothing spiritual or awe-inspiring, just the feeble reflections of a simple-minded soul.

First, Rip has taken to throwing up right after he drinks a bottle. No, this isn't spit up. This is throw up. I know this because of the amount of the throw up, the content of the throw up (chunks, anyone?), and the hose-like force of the throw up. It doesn't seem to bother him, he just drinks a bottle, waits a few seconds, and then starts coughing, which if you live in our house, is a clear warning sign of stomach content removal, or SCR, if you will. He is fine before, during, and after, so we figure this is just one of his adorable little quirks (I'm trying to be more positive after going to a party of sorts and realizing that being myself (snarky and sarcastic), wasn't winning me any friends; in fact, I'm pretty sure I was the subject of later discussions, but this will be addressed next).

Next, as mentioned before, I went to a party some time ago and was quickly informed through telling looks and glances, that my attitude is not appreciated everywhere and by everyone. This isn't a huge shock to me, just a gentle reminder that people, particularly the female kind, don't like blunt honesty disguised by sarcasm. After telling some girls about my own experience with having a new baby, I recognized the tell tale signs of shock and horror (so I wanted to get hit by a car? Big deal. Who didn't? And I didn't exactly feel kindly towards the little monster demanding to be nursed every 2 hours? That sound like a lullaby to anyone?). So I made the mistake of opening up too much too soon to those with little or no personality. My mistake.

The third thing going on in my house is Rip being almost 8 months. I've realized I absolutely love this age. From 6 months and on, Rip has been ridiculously fun. A naughty nightmare at times, but fun. He has a personality. Imagine! He moves around like a miniature person (mostly aggravating, but incredibly entertaining as well), and he has a wide range of emotions, versus the cry, smile, sleep cycle he used to be fond of. So really, I've really been enjoying him. It seems easier to take him places, since he's more interested in his surroundings, and I'm not such a slave to his eating/sleeping schedules. Awesome. Maybe if I tell those girls that, they will like me? Probably not since I still don't believe in skinny jeans, and I still won't deny wanting to get hit by a car when Rip was born. Never!

The last thing on my mind, is how I sometimes assume that so long as Rip isn't hanging on my leg and whining, I don't care what he's doing. Not true. After finding him happily chewing on the rag I used to sop up most of his puke, I quickly realized that even I have boundaries. Chewing puke-drenched rags is not okay in my book and neither is Melissa from Biggest Loser. I loath her.

Lenny

Someone I know did this on her blog, and I find it to be quite brilliant. Instead of writing paragraph after paragraph of gibberish nonsense, I can use bullet points to summarize my gibberish nonsense. Well done, Marcia. Well done.

• Rip has begun pulling himself up on stuff, including his crib. He now has decided he would much rather pull himself up on the crib to a stand and watch the door, waiting to be rescued rather than sleep. Goodbye naps (what little there was to begin with...). Your 30 minute holiness will sorely be missed.
  
• I'm training for a marathon; yes, I'm a fool. Every morning I get up and pack up chunky Rip and we go running. Well, I go running and he sits in the baby jogger and stares at cars passing, and sometimes tries to touch things we run past. Ahh, little Lenny.
  
• Josh is still in Hawaii, having fun, not wanting to punch his own face off (?) listening to Rip not sleeping in the room next door.
• My upstairs is just about put together. Did I ever mention that we bought a house? Well, we did and the upstairs is about put together. Did I ever mention that we bought a house? Well, we did and the upstairs is about put together. Did I ever mention that we bought a house...
• Rip has been crawling for 2 months now and his wounded soldier look has become even more exaggerated. As my brother-in-law described it, "He looks like a blown-up soldier climbing out of his foxhole." Well put, Eli. But ever say anything like that about my child again, and I'll rip your face off. Only I can be rude about Lenny.
• I sometimes call Rip 'Lenny' from the book 'Mice and Men.' In fact, right now he's banging his fat little hand on the wall and laughing. Okay...
• I have had a bowl of ice cream every night that Josh has been out of town.
  
• Since Lenny likes to pull his fat little body up on stuff, especially the bar stools, he has started to collect the battle wounds of babyhood. Bruises, welts, and bleeding mouths, walking is going to be a nightmare.
  
• Lenny still crawls after me and clings to my legs, whining. I still resist the urge to drop kick him somewhere else.
  
• Lenny is 7 1/2 months old.
• I'm officially changing Rip's name to Lenny.
• Once Josh gets back, I've decided to take a few weeks off myself. I'm taking my ice cream-saturated body to a beach somewhere, and I'm going to sleep entire nights without having to get up in the middle of the night to push Rip back down, only to have him laugh and crawl back to the side to pull himself back up.
• Lenny needs a nap. So do I.
  

Pictures -Do you care?

Because I'm such a good mom, Rip had his real first pictures taken. Yes. He's nearly 7 months. I dare you to judge me!

Nothing fancy or artsy, just me, Rip, Target, and the girl with a neon-green thong. Yup. While Rip stared at the picture lady doing her best to make him smile, I had to stare directly at her neon thong covering very little of her tan-even-though-it's-winter-and-it's-your-bum-and-it-should-probably-never-see-actual-light rear end. Anyway, it went fine, other than the fact that Rip was less than smitten by neon thong girl. I mean, this baby generally likes everybody and he spent the first 15 minutes just staring at her like her head was behind the banister at our house (Rip is deathly afraid of the banister that leads to the basement. We don't know why, we just know that when Josh puts his face behind the banister, Rip starts freaking out. This provides the amusement on slow nights). He was completely confused by her neon green thong, I guess. I know I was.

This was his expression most of the time (the only time he would smile was when I would jump out from behind her; I don't think it was a genuine smile, but sheer relief that I hadn't abandoned him to the woman wearing such provocative underwear while shooting pictures of children). It pretty much says it all. Now picture me with the same expression. This is how we were both looking at the woman wearing a neon green thong hanging 2 feet above her pants. *sigh* I do wish the baby had more hair, but considering I probably didn't have hair until I was 10 years old, he's managing quite well. He's going to lose it when he's 25 anyway, so I figure he might as well not get too attached to having hair.

And if I must be honest, I find myself really enjoying this baby. Josh and I always talk about how sorry we feel for our next baby, because we couldn't possibly love another baby as much as we do Rip. Poor next baby.

The Jolley Robbins

This is our coed indoor soccer team. The name, Jolley Robbins, means exactly what it says. This team has Jolleys and it has Robbins. Three of Josh's sisters play on it, with two of their husbands, and then a couple of brother-in-law's brothers. It was really fun, only I would leave each and every game completely humiliated by my behavior.

See, I've become that girl. The girl who loses her temper and is screaming at guys twice her size. I have even punched a guy in the back... after the game, when we were shaking hands. I've told many a refs that they are nightmares. I've been honestly ready and willing to get in multiple fights with any number of male opponents. I have no filter and absolutely no control over what I say and who I say it to.

So why should last night be any different? Well, it wasn't. I always start a game making promises to myself that I'm going to remain human and not fly off the handle. No such luck. I didn't just 'fly off the handle.' I ran at a full sprint away from it, never to return.

Idiot defender guy: "Oh give me a break. Tell that girl to relax" (referring to my sister-in-law, Karen)

Idiot Goal Keeper: "Seriously. She's out of control!"

Me: "Why don't you both just shut your freaking mouths?"

Idiot defender guy: "Oooohhhh..."

Booty Shorts (girl wearing exceptionally small shorts): "Okay, everyone, it's just a game. Relax."

Me: "Save it Booty Shorts"

Idiot Goal Keeper: "What did she call you?"

Booty Shorts: "Booty shorts"

After the game was over and we're shaking hands....

Booty shorts: "Next time don't comment on what people are wearing"

Me: "Next time, wear clothes that fit you."

And this girl was just some random peacemaking type, who probably hadn't played a lot of soccer and honestly didn't have a pair of soccer shorts, so she opted for the next best thing -shorts that look like underwear. In her defense, she did have pretty amazing legs. Not the point. The point is I told a ref to go back to Mexico, I screamed a number of times at people to shut up, and ultimately, I was hoping beyond hoping that someone would just get in my face so I would have an excuse to punch him or her in the face. The rage that engulfs me during games terrifies me later.

Josh and I were discussing it after the game on our way home. I expressed that I hated the type of player I had become. I never used to lose it like that. I never used to (there may have been a time or two) argue with refs, get in fights with players, or completely forgo any self-respect I might have had and act like a complete lunatic. Josh summed it up perfectly.

"When you used to play to a certain ability, and you never had to say anything because you just let your play and skills speak for you, and you don't necessarily play at that same level you once were capable of, you improvise."

I guess that's what I'm doing. I'm improvising for all those missed passes, crappy shots, and failed one-on-ones. Sad. I wish I could still just be decent instead of having to fight every single person on the field. I don't think my mother-in-law is too impressed.