The Birds and the Bees and Build a Bear Workshop

While I was in my brandy induced stupor fighting my cold, Ryder was asking GI Joe deep questions. One of the questions....."Daddy, how did you create me?"

Ryder is 6. Ryder is innocent when it comes to such matters as you know, the birds and the bees. GI Joe didn't feel the time was right to have "the talk", I mean after all he's 6 and he certainly wasn't ready to have THAT talk. So GI Joe's instantaneous response?

"We picked you out a baby shop and then stuffed you at Build a Bear Workshop. Your belly button is where we stitched you up."

Seriously.

Therapy anyone?

Looking forward to the call from school telling me that my child is scaring the other children with his tales of being stitched up at BUILD A BEAR WORKSHOP when he was created by his Mommy and Daddy. Help us all.

He's already starting to doubt the Build a Bear theory and was poking at himself to see if he could feel the cotton inside. Clearly, I cannot take sick days around this place.

Drunken Baby

You’ll be happy to know that I had no residual effects from my wild night of hot toddy drinking and am feeling human again. I told you it was for MEDICINAL purposes. I am a wise, wise, woman. You can call me Doctor if you want.

I promised to tell you about the time I got my unborn baby drunk on NyQuil. And since you stuck with me through my drunken stupor and subsequent rehab I figured I owe you. Here goes:

The year was 2002, the month January. I was 10 months pregnant or 9 or however you count it when it’s the same month as you’re due, with Blade, baby #2. Pregnant math..I’ll never understand it. 40 weeks=10 months people don’t try to tell me you’re only pregnant for 9 months. I digress…back to the story. I had the worst cold in the history of my life, made worse by the fact that I couldn’t sleep because it’s next to impossible to get comfortable with an enormous baby in my womb. I’m sorry I just used the word womb on my blog, please don’t leave. Given that I had already successfully completed one pregnancy and managed to give birth to a very intelligent, beautiful little girl, I felt I was nearing expert level at this pregnancy stuff and no longer felt the need to call the doctor for every little thing. At about day 3 of misery with worst cold in the history of my life, I caved and called to ask what I could take in my delicate state. Their answer? Tylenol and only Tylenol. Tylenol works about as well for me as jelly beans but being a complacent patient I took their advice. It didn’t work…at all. After 3 days of barely any sleep and thinking I was surely going to die from this cold before I gave birth to this baby I did a little self medicating. It was about 2 in the morning (girl whatcha wanna do…that was for you A) when in a desperate move, I chugged a dose of NyQuil. I went back to bed and waited for the magic to happen. The only magic that happened was that I was wide awake, miserable as ever, and fidgety. And I remained that way for the next 6 hours, loopy, wide awake with my body begging me to lay down and go to sleep but my mind racing. Not fun. Wish I’d had a blog then, THAT would’ve been a good post. After the NyQuil buzz wore off I realized that I hadn’t felt baby move in a very long time, like 5 hours long. I laid down and tried to be really still and still nothing. In the last month of pregnancy this freaks a mother out. I called the doctor and they too were concerned and told me I needed to come in and be put on monitors to make sure baby was ok. GI Joe and I made our way to the hospital, where they checked me out and hooked me up to fetal monitors to monitor baby’s heartbeat. There was some concern as baby’s heartbeat was considerably slower than normal and he didn’t move for the nearly 2 hours that I was on monitors. Finally, he woke up and started hiccuping. The doctors were a little puzzled by this but we were all relieved that he was ok. It was then that it occurred to me that maybe the NyQuil had something to do with it. Sometimes I have selective memory. I sheepishly confessed to the doctor that I had indeed taken NyQuil after the Tylenol failed me. A look of relief crossed his face, quickly replaced by a stern look and then he said to us, “Well, that explains it then, you got your baby drunk, no wonder he woke up hiccuping. There’s a reason we tell you only Tylenol.”

Oops. Just another stop along the way to Worst Motherville.

Blade was born a few weeks later with no lasting effects of the NyQuil induced Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and believe it or not they actually let me take him home! You’ll also be happy to note that I haven’t had a drop of NyQuil since that fateful night, thought I’d give it up, you know for the sake of the kids. Now I’ve moved on to straight up brandy. It’s how I roll.

He turned out ok.

The Time I Was a Raging Drunk

Catchy title eh? It might be because I’m drunk right now. Settle down sisters, Grandpa, and church friends. Call off the prayer chain, it’s for MEDICINAL purposes. However, this post might just be my first ever drunk blog and probably the last if the intervention I know you're staging goes as planned.

After a fabulous Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I woke up on Sunday feeling awful. Sore throat, feverish, weak, headache, the whole shebang. I stayed home from church, hence the beginning of my downhill spiral into a life of booze, and sent the kids to church w/ their Nana and Papa since GI Joe was off playing Army. I tried to take a mom sick day but being that I am a supermom/wife wannabe there was laundry to be folded and put away, floors to be swept, a dishwasher to be loaded, you know the norm. And I have some disorder that does not allow me to be sick and do nothing until my house is clean and orderly. I mean if I die, I don’t want everyone descending on my messy house. That in and of itself…total sickness. So anyway after doing my to do’s with sporadic breaks placed throughout so that I could continue without fainting or dying, I retired the couch at about 7 for some catch up time with Tivo thinking surely some rest, relaxation, Vitamin C, Theraflu, and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” season finale would kick this cold by Monday morning.

Monday morning, I woke up bright and early, except not feeling so bright, still feeling pretty downright awful. Sucked it up and went to work armed with Sudafed. I’m not afraid of a little medicine head. Was slightly bitter that GI Joe is working some crazy long mandatory hours right now and wouldn’t be home til late, meaning I had to do all the Monday night running the kids around which equated to no sick time for Mama. Sidenote: In the midst of my Monday night chauffeuring, I rolled down my window on the Princess Mobile and it got stuck. So I got to drive around the rest of the night in 11 degree weather with my window partly done. Awesome. Do you see why I’ve been driven to drink?

Amidst all this, I sent GI Joe this text:
“Please pick up some mini bar sized bottles of brandy. K? Thanks.”
His response: “WHAT?”
My response: “Brandy for medicinal purposes.”
*Crickets*-no response.

You see a wise man once told me that a shot of brandy will cure the common cold. I’ve always passed that advice on to everyone I know. Something about the alcohol killing the germs and the potency of the brandy clearing your throat and sinuses and so on, sounds believable to me.. Maybe he was just trying to get me drunk but at this point I’m up for anything cuz Theraflu, Sudafed, etc just aren’t cutting it. Surely it can’t be any worse than NyQuil. Incidentally, NyQuil acts like speed for me and keeps me up all night and makes me loopy. Remind me to tell you about the time I got my unborn baby, Blade, drunk on NyQuil. Good times..good times. Even prenatal, I was mom of the year.

And now back to my current stupor, by the time we got home at around 8pm I was done for and really looking forward to GI Joe walking through the door w/ my brandy. When he walked through the door about 30 minutes later bearing HyVee sacks I began pillaging immediately for my brandy. Like an addict needs her drugs, that was me. Imagine my immense disappointment when there was no brandy. WHAAAAAAT? He said he couldn’t find any little bottles of brandy, just the big ones so he didn’t get any. Can you believe that nonsense? In my time of need, he let me down. I chugged some more Theraflu and went to bed, bound and determined to buy my own darn brandy, big bottle or not.

Fast forward to now, when my cold has stepped up to nearly intolerable levels and making me absolutely miserable. I have a high tolerance for pain (hello, 28 hours of labor, NO DRUGS and no, I will never let that go) but colds are the worst and this one in particular is not doing me any favors so I decided to give the brandy theory a shot (pun intended). So on my way home from work I procured a stewardess sized bottle of brandy. Much to my disappointment I was NOT Id'ed, I blame this cold it makes me look tired, haggard and apparently OLD. Once I got home I decided the best thing would be to just have a straight up shot of brandy and see how that worked. That stuff is NASTY. It burned going down but I felt it burning the bad germs right up and clearing my throat and sinuses along the way. Turns out I'm a sleepy drunk and immediately following my shot I took the best 2 hour nap of my life and woke up feeling somewhat human again.

Now it's time for bed and the earlier effects of the brandy have worn off and I'm feeling crappy again so I made myself a little bedtime hot toddy. Mostly I just like to say hot toddy.

I can’t say for sure if it’s curing my cold or not but I can say that I’m feeling pretty good right now, dancing on the kitchen counters and such.

Bottoms up…or down…or what the heck did I do with my pants?

Time to lay off the brandy. Someone call Dr. Drew.


Yours from Rehab,

Prairie Princess

Real Things

I like real things…… like Joe Nichols in concert on a Thursday night. For those of you not familiar with country music, Joe is a handsome artist with a unique old school country sounding voice and a list of hit songs including, “Another Side of You”, “The Impossible”, “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” (don’t worry no tequila was consumed by anyone in my party.), “Real Things” (does the title make sense now?), “I’ll Wait for You” and a whole slew of other ones.

GI Joe is not much of a concert goer unless it’s one of his top 4 faves, meaning one of the 4 that has permanent occupancy in his truck’s CD changer. One of the many ways we differ. Unfortunately, Joe is not among his top 4 so he stayed home with the kids while I pretended I was an irresponsible, carefree, girl and went with my homies; Annette, Doug, Jerry, Kathy, McDreamy. A couple important fun facts: 1) Joe Nichols IS one of Doug’s top 3 faves so he was comparable to Annette and I at an NKOTB show except he just loves the music and doesn't gush about how cute Joe is and have to strip off clothing when he comes out on stage because well, because he's hot or scream and nearly faint every time Joe looked his direction. Not that Annette and I ever do either of those things. 2) This was McDreamy’s first country concert with us and we broke him in right.

Opening for Joe, was Iowa’s own (sadly) wanna be country music star, Jason “The Clown” Brown. OK, maybe we added the Clown part. I’m not sure if I can express our (and by our I mean mainly Annette and I’s) deep dislike of this guy. Little background: He thinks he’s a huge country star. He is NOT. He still lives in Iowa, not Nashville. Pretty sure I've been in Nashville more than he has in the past year and I hardly consider myself a country star because of it. Iowa is great and all but we’re not exactly known for our music row or our country music legends. Also, he talks with this hugely fake Southern accent. He has always lived in Iowa with the exception of a little time spent in Texas, and by little I mean a couple summers or something like that, I could only handle reading so much of his bio. Not enough to gain a life long deep southern drawl. He’s a scumbag. We’ve witnessed and even been subjected to his very inappropriate behavior for a married man with 2 young children, towards those with, let’s see how can I put this delicately?, ummm…tatas. His songs are annoying and sometimes I think our local radio stations feel sorry for him so they play them a little too much for our liking. And lastly, he wears guyliner. A country singer wearing guyliner? ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, usually if we’re at a concert that he is opening for we either go late or if we have to be there to ensure we have our standard close to the stage proximity for the main act, we tend to plug our ears and chant “Down with the Clown” while he’s playing, until we get dirty looks from those around us, who apparently have either had too much to drink or are related to him. I’m sorry, he’s just THAT bad.

We timed it so we would only have to be there for about 15 minutes of his set or whatever you would call what he was trying to do. We hung out towards the back of the venue where we couldn’t really see him and could converse amongst ourselves instead of listening to his attempt at music. During this time, Jerry tried to spike my Diet Coke. Thanks Annette for watching out for me and for making sure I wouldn’t be the girl whose clothes were falling off later in the evening. Sidenote: Jerry didn’t really spike my Diet Coke, but he did think about it until Annette busted him. What is it about getting a good Baptist girl liquored up that seems so appealing? :)

Once the clown finished, Doug was getting antsy to secure our spot closer to the stage so we started our trek inward. Annette and I, through our many concert experiences, have perfected the art of getting close. Look for an opening, press thru the crowd (nicely) to get to it, seek another closer opening, repeat, and before you know it you’re nice and close. The spot we secured even came with its own set of crazies. A few highlights from the crazies who were directly in front of us, keep in mind that these were not young kids these were grown adults probably in their late 40’s to mid 50’s: 1) one of the guys in the group kept turning around and lifting up his shirt to us exposing his less than chiseled abs and chest…ewww. 2) one of the other guys in the group thought it was really funny to wave his hand in front of my camera every time I went to take a picture…Annette told him “Oh uh uh” so many times I lost track. 3) Pretty sure they thought Joe Nichols was Blake Shelton because they kept saying things like, “This is my favorite Blake Shelton song” or “I told you Blake Shelton sang this song.” Ummm yeah, wrong guy people, look at your ticket. 4) At one point, the whole group of them turned around, posed, and one of the women said to Annette and I, “TAKE OUR PICTURE!!!!” OK, yeah because I’m going to frame that one of the concert crazies. Not so much, so I just pretended to take it and instead have a picture of the stage lights. 5) While Joe was singing some of his slower, more emotional ballads such as “I’ll Wait for You” the crazies were carrying on a casual conversation about what they did at work today or the weather or IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER WE JUST WANTED THEM TO STOP TALKING. Doug is a very even keeled gentleman but I seriously thought he was going to go all Jack Bauer on them.
This is Joe Nichols NOT Blake Shelton. Although we do love Blake Shelton as well.

Joe put on an amazing show and we had a blast. Then at the end Joe said the magic words, “I’ll be signing autographs at the merchandise table after the show. Stop by and see me!” You should’ve seen the way Doug, Annette, and I’s eyes simultaneously lit up. We were all prepared to go hang out by the buses to get our facetime in but Joe just went ahead and made it easy for us. By the time Joe finished his sentence, we’d already worked our way through the crowd and were right by the merchandise table. Props to McDreamy for keeping up since this was his first time seeing us in action, it's not easy being a groupie. Jerry befriended every security guard manning the area and we tried to shield the boys’ eyes from the hussies in sundresses (in February) standing at the railing in the balcony above us exposing their huhots...seriously. We waited and waited until finally Joe walked out. He stopped and signed an autograph for a couple people before us but then his security people pushed him right past us to get him to his table where people were lined up to buy merchandise and have him sign stuff. Jerry had a bit of a diva moment and was done, said Joe missed his opportunity to meet him…. blah, blah blah. Given that this was McDreamy’s first country concert with us, he wasn’t so much into the autograph thing so he and Jerry went and sat down while Annette, Doug and I got in the fairly short line for autographs and a picture with Joe. We each got to have him sign something and had our picture with him. He was so nice and genuine. Price of concert ticket $12, virgin Diet Coke during show $2, look on Doug’s face after he got to meet one of his all time favorite singers? Priceless.

As we were walking out this twenty something kid in a wheelchair who was obviously quite inebriated stopped us and kept asking us to take his friend’s picture and then send it to him on Facebook. What is it with complete strangers wanting us to take their pictures and then apparently adding them as friends on Facebook? His friend was all sprawled out on some chairs, obviously intoxicated as well. For some reason this struck the wheelchair kid as very funny that his friend wasn’t very mobile. Annette said to him and I kid you not, “Why don’t you just give him a ride in your wheelchair?” Do you see why I love her so?

I’m going to leave you with this song that Joe Nichols wrote about me. I don’t remember ever dating him but I must’ve because a more fitting song has never been written.

http://popup.lala.com/popup/432627077918573050

Truthful Tuesday

This is kind of a cop out for a real blog post but at least it's something right? Maybe you'll even find it entertaining...or not. It's all I've got, take it or leave it my friends. :)
Truthful Tuesday...the keepin' it real edition.

*I'm hopelessly addicted to these 2 beauty items. Please set up an intervention or try them for yourself. And yes that is a marijuana leaf on the bottle of lotion. Why do you think I like it so much? Ha! Ha!


*I have a healthy, respectable crush on this guy after seeing Dear John this past weekend. Having just read the book I was somewhat disapointed in the film adaptation of it, but getting to see this guy on the big screen for the duration of the movie was worth the price of admission. Well, that AND being on a date night with my true love GI Joe.



*I hate talk radio with a passion. I especially despise Michael Savage, the sound of his voice gives me instant Terets. This is interesting given that my husband is a bit of a talk radio nerd and listens to talk radio constantly. Lucky for me I don't have to listen to it because he'll tell me everything (he thinks) I need to know, whether I want to know it or not.

*My kids, ages 10, 8, and 6 still call me Mommy. Not Mom but Mommy and I LOVE it. I hope they never make the switch. I don't care if it is weird when they are big burly teenagers (hopefully just the boys are that way), I will still love it.

*Every day when I get home from work, one of the first things I do is light at least one candle. The scent depends on what time of year it is. Ex: currently burning Macintosh Spice. At the first sign of spring we'll switch over to the "clean" scents. I'm weird I know.

*I've recently become addicted to Celebrity Rehab w/ Dr. Drew. Is that an oxymoron or what? I think Dr. Drew needs to have rehab for addicts of his Celebrity Rehab show.

*My shoe size increased half a size w/ each kid I bore. I now have Shaq sized feet.

*I could eat sushi every day for the rest of my life and never tire of it. I really really LOVE sushi. I also love that I got GI Joe hooked on it. Something about my backwoods boy loving something as seemingly sophisticated as sushi makes me innately happy.

*I've always been a tad bit competitive and also very good at trash talking, however typically lacked the athletic ability to back it up at least in sports. Now board games..BRING IT. Anyway, It's been really hard for me now that the boys are in sports and doing well, NOT to succumb to being one of "those" parents who gets a little too into it, gets overly competitive and sucks the fun right out of it for the kids. So as much as I'd like to yell, "DESTROY THAT LITTLE SHRIMP! PEN HIM! MAKE HIM CRY!" during their wrestling meets, I refrain. However, when someone starts downplaying my kids' accomplishments and trash talking about MY BABIES there is no refraining, they will see a fighting side of me and probably get their feelings hurt. Don't say I didn't warn you. P.S. My sons are tougher than yours. Oh oops, that just slipped, hate when that happens. ;)


And that's all for this edition of Truthful Tuesday. Fascinating I know. Have a great Tuesday!

Still Alive and Kicking

No, I didn’t drop off the face of the earth. Yes, I am going to continue blogging (sometime) and yes, the last 2 months have been among the worst in my life, thanks for asking.

Here’s a brief recap of the year 2010 in the life and times of the Prairie Princess:, have Kleenex handy and probably a few anti-depressants, you’ll need them.

Dec 29-My sweet niece Kaydence passed away after outliving the doctor’s predictions by almost 5 months. No matter what the doctors had told us, this was still a total blow to our family. You are never ever prepared for something like that.
Jan. 1-Rang in the New Year by attending Kaydence’s visitation. Worst New Year’s Day ever.
Jan. 2-Attended Kaydence’s funeral. Unhappy New Year.
Jan. 15th-18th-A momcation (just me) to Nashville to see my youngest sister Hilary and family was a welcome getaway. Not to brag, but after all they’d been thru in saying goodbye to their little girl, me breezing in, cooking up a storm, and making my sister laugh were just what the doctor ordered for all of us. And I got to hangout with this adorable dude and reaffirm my spot as his favorite aunt. Oh look a bright spot!!!

Feb. 1st-The 11 year anniversary of my Mom’s unexpected, untimely death in a car accident. That dreadful day was on a Monday and this year’s anniversary just happened to be on a Monday as well. Too many similarities. For some reason it hit me really, really hard this year. It was a very very bad day. Had myself a pity party, shed quite a few tears and if you'll recall I'm a horrificly ugly crier so I looked awful all day. Life is not fair. God must’ve known that I would need a reason to get out of bed on all February 1sts post 1999, so he made sure Blade was born on that day in 2002. Had to suck it up, put on my happy face and celebrate my little man turning 8. I love that kid and I love that he makes February 1st not so dreadful. A Big Top Cupcake makes everything better.

Feb. 3rd-Got the call that my Grandma, my dad’s mom, the one who sent me coupons, cards, and cooking magazines, encouraged my love of cooking even at a very young age, who prayed under her breath while riding in the car with me, and doted on the 5 of us grandkids as if we were just IT, had passed away. She was 85 but it was still so unexpected. In my head, all 4 of my grandparents were going to live forever, and the 3 that remain had better do just that. She was at her house with my Grandpa, her husband of 64 years, when she said she didn’t feel good and asked him to get her a glass of milk. By the time he got back to the living room from the kitchen with her milk she was gone. A heart attack. This sadness was different from the sadness we experienced w/ my Mom and with Kaydence because Grandma had a long and full life but you know what? It still hurts. Hurts bad. I('ll probably need to blog about her and her awesomeness more in a separate post.) I went immediately w/ my Dad and stepmom to Cedar Rapids where Grandma & Grandpa live, to do whatever I could to help. Turns out my main job was making Grandpa happy. Fortunately, I excel at that. To quote my dear Grandpa, “I don’t need this anxiety medicine the doctor gave me as long as Holly is around.” If only I were available in pill form.

Feb. 5th-Grandma’s visitation. It was a very nice visitation as she was loved by so many. But so, so sad to see my Grandpa looking so lonely and heartbroken and to see my Dad and uncles devastated over losing their mom. The upside to this day? My entire family was together again, even Hilary and Bryan made the trek from Nashville . One thing about my side of the family is that everything is more enjoyable when we’re together. Well, that and the multiple Sonic drink runs we made. Sidenote: At my visitation, guests will be asked to where nametags, identifying themselves and how they knew me.
Feb. 6th-We all donned our “funeral clothes” that had barely had time to dry since the last time we’d worn them, to go to Grandma’s funeral. She had told my Dad months ago that he had to sing at her funeral and told her what songs she wanted sung, so he did. My dad is my hero, I can’t even imagine. Then my uncle, her oldest son, read a tribute that he sent her last Mother’s Day. Ummm yeah not a dry eye in the place. I hope when I die, people say half of the things about me that they said about my Grandma. For example, we asked Grandpa and my Dad if they ever remember her raising her voice or yelling at them. The answer? No, she never yelled or raised her voice, she would take a certain “tone” when her boys got out of hand but never yelled. Amazing. Then again, she didn’t have Dakota as a daughter. Kidding, people relax.

Feb. 8th- Took Moose the Lab, to the vet because he’d been having increased difficulty walking. He’s only 4 so I wasn’t expecting anything major. I should’ve known. He’s got a bad knee, a really bad knee. Our options? An $1800 surgery or try some natural stuff and therapy, have a 3 legged dog and hope that the other knee doesn’t go out. Are you kidding me? Nope, welcome to my world.

Feb. 9th-Resisted the urge to stay in my bed in a dark room for the rest of my life because I was feeling a little, ok really beat up by life. Soldiered thru the day only to get a call from GI Joe midway thru to let me know that my favorite horse, Jack was probably not going to make it thru the week. Prayed the following prayer, “Dear God, can we catch a break here? Seriously…” Went home, bundled up and went outside to check on Jack. I will spare you all details but he came out to greet me , then fell right at my feet and never got back up. GI Joe wasn’t home yet so Dakota, Blade and I stayed out in the freezing cold with Jack for about 30 minutes, saying our goodbyes and letting him know how loved he was. My heart hurt. I love my animals like I love people. Turns out I’m not such a tough farm girl after all. RIP Jack.

And there you have it Prairie Princess debuting as Debbie Downer. Sorry no rainbows and warm fuzzies here, just cold harsh reality. The good news is that I still have my faith and I’ve been blessed with the greatest family one could hope for who make the bad times better.
The past 2 days have been blessedly uneventful and I’m hoping for at least a few months of nothing but good. In the meantime, I’ll try to get back to blogging regularly, the non depressing stuff anyway. On the bright side, if what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then I’m either almost dead or HeMan. Just wish my abs knew that.