These are my dress clothes

C: $100

I have realized that I have a congenital disease passed on from mother to daughter in all upper-middle-class suburbs. It is beyond my mental, emotional and physical capabilities to spend less than $100 at Target. I bet House could find a cure, but as it stands right now, in a House-less world, I am just a victim of the disease....destined to suffer for eternity.

Today I went to Target for 2 packs of diapers. That is $35 (we split 50/50 cheap Target brand and expensive Pampers to get the double-whammy self-esteem boost associated with spoiling your child and also being fiscally responsible). I spent a total of $310.28. I am not entirely sure what I bought with that $310.28, but I know I walked out of the store feeling really good about myself and enjoying the spending-high.

Okay that is a total lie - I know exactly what I bought because it is what I always buy at Target: luxurious crap. It is important to differentiate total crap with luxurious crap. Wal*mart sells total crap. Target, however, sells you crap you don't need but are willing to pay a lot of money to put it in your house. I would never spend more than $5 on hair products I don't need at Wal*mart and yet I will lay down $10 in 3 seconds flat at Target for the same thing.

Today I bought both a curling iron and a hair straightener. I have both already, but for some reason I felt the need to 'upgrade' my hair tools b/c the price was reasonable and it felt luxurious to pamper myself with new, ionic, ceramic hair tools in shiny packaging. It should be noted that I wear my hair in a non-straightened and non-curled ponytail everyday of my life.

I also bought my dogs new toys and treats. It should be noted that my dogs eat each others' feces.

I also bought women's multi-vitamins. It should be noted that I eat my son's Flintstone vitamin (of which we have 300 remaining) everyday when he inevitably rejects it to embrace his status as the only monstrous 2-year old on the planet who is anemic.

I also bought new powder, foundation, make-up remover, mascara and lip-gloss. It should be noted that I already have a years' supply of each from the last time I went to Target. But the make-up remover, mascara and lip-gloss were mostly organic, so I mentally chalked the purchase up to being a good citizen of the planet.

I also bought 2,500 stickers - I am not exaggerating. I actually bought two 1,000 sticker boxes and 20 more 4-sheet packs of stickers. I spent over $30 on stickers. As I type this, I am concerned about my mental stability b/c again - I'm not really sure why I felt the need to buy 2,500 stickers.It should be noted that I am not a teacher; I do not really need to stick things; I am not crafty. I just bought them. I told myself 'You can put them in the kid's stocking at Christmas or you can give them to the preschool teacher. It is a good bargain and they are cute.'

Delusional.

What I should be spending $100 a week on is Target stock. But that is lame, so I'll keep filling my house with luxurious crap: it is the American way.

C: Pregnant women really are smug

I'm going to start by saying that this post is in no way about my sister - who is due in 2 weeks, and is one of the 5 readers of this blog and more importantly, is not smug in any way.

So, I'm sure some of you have heard the music video all over the net about pregnant women, if not, I recommend you take a listen:

super funny and sadly true link here

At first I was annoyed, like all women who have been pregnant, as my instant reaction was "that is just total crap, no one acts like that". Then I went to work and my attitude changed completely.

I spent 4 hours in a meeting with a pregnant woman. Now, it is important to note that I really like this woman in general. And it is important to note that she is pregnant with twins, and thus all annoying pregnancy habits are doubled.

It was a succession planning meeting (there is not enough time to get into the pointlessness of corporate succession planning....) so we were spending lots of time talking about people's future and the future of the organization, etc, etc, blah, blah. Future talk is not good for innocent bystanders of pregnancy. Every single conversation involved an overt reference to the pregnancy/babies.

IB (innocent bystander): "Why don't you start off by talking about one of your employee's development plans Preggers?"

P (preggers): "Sure, but remember I am PREGNANT [lots of hand pointing to stomach] so comment at your own risk."

IB: "As we rate all of your employees remember that a 'star' designation should only be rendered to maybe 2 people in the whole company. It means they could be the future CEO of the company."

P: "Like these two right here [more hand pointing to stomach]!"

IB: "P, can you please take those sticky notes down since they are right behind you?"

P: "Ok, I mean I am PREGNANT and all, but sure, I can do that." [insert obvious look of exasperation to group and strain dramatically while getting out of chair to turn around 90 degrees and puuuullllllll off those ridiculously heavy sticky notes}

After those 4 hours, I realized what the song was all about. Pregnant women totally suck.

C: I'm a big, fat lame-O

Sometimes it takes an outside opinion to show you that need to make a change.

Like when Amazon sends you an email stating:

"As a fan of paranormal teen fiction, you may like this new book."

A fan of paranormal teen fiction? It sounds so harsh when you say it out loud. So I like YA lit, so what?! Amazon has no right to judge me...did they really have to use the word "paranormal"? It sounds so creepy.

Then, I get a call from Amy letting me know that our favorite magazine, Domino, had been canceled and replaced with Glamour.

Sure enough, I look in my mailbox and find the following statement from Domino:

"With regret, we have decided that we will no longer be publishing Domino. In its place, we will be sending you Cookie....."

WTF?!?! Amy gets Glamour and I get Cookie? That is clearly zip-code profiling. Just b/c Amy lives in some posh, up-and-coming, "transitional", city neighborhood and I live in the burbs DOES NOT mean that I should be treated as a Cookie-reader!

I mean, sure, I shop at Super Wal*mart (who doesn't want to save money and live better!), go to bed before 9pm on most nights (I don't want to look old), love CBS (How I Met Your Mother is completely hilarious) and a good cake-mix recipe but as God as my witness I will NOT become a Cookie-subscriber!

C: She gets around...the pound

So, it has become increasingly apparent to me that my dog Dulce, is a little, shall we say "loose".

It all started innocent enough, I mean, she is a friendly dog. And she doesn't discriminate against males and females. Or so I thought. Then I noticed the tell-tale signs that maybe it was something more than just an inherently friendly nature. Her good buddy Laddie (looks just like Lassie but male, hence the name) came to visit and instead of just running around chasing each other, she made some advances. I passed it off as harmless preteen flirting, but a part of me got concerned when Laddie seemed scared of her and retreated back to his yard much more quickly than usual. She is just showing dominance, I told myself.

Then we started getting the notes from school. Well, Doggy Day Camp.

"Dulce sure loves all the boys. She is such a flirt."

"What a sweet girl, always plays with the boys."

"She couldn't decide which of the boys to play with first. She just had to play with all of them today"

I began to see behind the cutsie smiley faces on the notes and recognized the edge of judgment in their tone. A part of me realized that "play" was an euphemism for another act, but what parent allows that thought to really sink in?

Then we got the news every parent dreads: Dulce had started a fight with another female camper. The counselor (yes, they are called counselors) said that as the dogs were lining up to go back to their pens after playtime and Dulce "just turned on the other dog out of the blue and attacked." They said "maybe it is the heat" to make me feel better about my parenting skills, as daycare workers and camp counselors are trained to do.

But I know the truth; I had to spend $750 to fix my dog (she lost the fight in about 10 seconds, apparently) after she got into a girl-fight over her boy-toys. The shame. The shame.

A/C: Manicorn, manicorn where art thou?

So, while we were purusing urbandictionary.com, we came across a wonderful word: manicorn.

a mythical male creature who is successful (read: pursuing his passion and can pay his electric bills/rent), funny, chivalrous, masculine (read: not chauvinistic), adventurous, artistic (read: not suicidal

We have no idea if such a version of the male species exists, but if so the internet will bring him to us. So if you meet all of these descriptors and find yourself reading this, feel free to email us pronto. Our current significant others would definitely support this endeavor: manicorn sightings are rare and precious things.

Amy's manicorn: SWF seeking widowed 23.5 - 32-ish male. Must be independently wealthy who enjoys constant travel alone and who owns no possessions. Must be willing to move into my house with no say as to the way it is decorated. Must own an ocean-front home in a foreign country that he will let me decorate and allow me and my friends to visit exclusively. He must have 8-year old twins: one boy and one girl. The children must be perfectly behaved and go to boarding school (year-round, in Europe). He must hate ESPN. He must be able to recreate anything seen in a Pottery Barn catalog using tools that he keeps at a friend's house. Must be early for everything. Must know how to cook or be willing to eat out every meal (breakfast included). He must be willing to accept defeat within 3 seconds of all arguments.  Willing to audition fo reality TV shows with me. Must be willing to study the Twilight series and should strive to immulate Edward in all aspects of life (except the drinking of blood).

Amy's top five (okay....6): John Legend, Tom Welling, Edward Cullen, Jason Taylor, Cam Gigendet, Matthew Fox

Caitlyn's manicorn: (see above with the following adjustments). Lose the 8-year olds. He must be willing to be a stay-at-home dad and have the economic means to hire a housekeeper, gardener, night nanny, house manager, cook, laundress, dog walker, hermit crab feeder, butler, grocery shopper, etc. He must not EVER question my parenting skills. He must be willing to sleep in a separate bedroom (actually, wing of the house would be best), as the dogs and I take up a lot of room in my current king bed. Hates all films starring the following actors with asymetrical facial features: Nicholas Cage, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, William Defoe, Gary Busey. Must be exceptionally symetrical himself. Must have all conversations via email. He needs several super powers...though he cannot be able to read my mind. Must consider US Weekly a valid news source and appropriate for dinner conversation. Must have friends all exactly like him to avoid introducing any annoying qualities into my home.

Caitlyn's top 5 (okay....6.5): Edward Cullen (the character in my head...not Robert Pattinson), Tom Welling, Scott Foley, Sidney Crosby (I pretend he is American and 3 years older), Josh Lucas, Eli Manning, Adrienne Grenier*

*only half of the time - when he is well-groomed for TV

C: Everything you need to know about genetics you can learn in Starbucks

I have just 3 sources for all vital information:

(1) eavesdropping at Starbucks and/or Caribou Coffee

(2) the all-knowing tv monitor in the elevator at work

(3) VH1's Best Week Ever

I have gone through rebellious stages when I did kooky things like listen to NPR or subscribe to a newspaper but those dark days are behind me. I do run into issues when I have a slow meeting week and thus, do not spend a lot of time on the elevator. I didn't know about the Hudson plane crash for 3 days for that reason. On the upside, the elevator also expands my vocabulary on a daily basis. It also offers the occasional irony, like when the word of the day was "smarmy" and I happened to be riding the 'vator with an uber-smarm (noun form of the word...I do love the elevator).

Today, while waiting for my coffee in the Starbucks drive-thru (despite my weekly promise to stop drinking so much coffee), I overheard a patron telling the Starbucks dude (I do not use the word "barista" - it is not real) that having 5 fingers is a recessive trait. Wha, What?!?! So I jumped on Wikipedia to verify. Yes, I fully realize that Wikipedia should not be a source for any fact verification endeavor, and yet I will continue to use it for everything given its extraordinary convenience.

Unfortunately, I then spent the next hour desperately trying to figure out genetics (via Wikipedia, of course). I am fairly certain I nailed this in 7th grade science but for some reason just can't seem to grasp this whole dominant/recessive thing. I do not understand how supposed recessive traits can appear out of nowhere. Like how I have blond hair and the rest of my family is all brunette. Or how my husband has green eyes, when everyone else in his family has blue eyes (by now you are realizing that all of these links are wikipedia links...I wasn't lying). Actually, all my research just uncovered the fact that my husband is 100% recessive and I'm a good mix of both recessiveness (could be a word) and dominance.

Which means that when it comes to our son...I am totally winning.

C: Sunny Days...

So I have been spending a lot of time watching The Street these days...you know, Sesame Street. Yep, my life is fabulous. But after a 25+ year gap, I find it completely fascinating.

• I find it completely fascinating that kids can tolerate Elmo, who is clearly the spawn of Satan sent to destroy all eardrums
• I find it completely fascinating that the writers thought that "glockenspiel" was a good "word for the day"....out of all the words a preschooler should be mastering? My kid cannot say "blankie" and they are suggesting he try "glockenspiel"? I guarantee those writers totally got beat up in preschool. And the worst part of it is that now I know what a damn glockenspiel is and I'm fairly certain that knowledge replaced something really important in my limited brain space.
• I find it completely fascinating that Prairie Dawn still has that wretched haircut - some people cannot pull off bangs.
• I find it completely fascinating that Chris Brown did not get a Grammy nod with the song "See the Signs"...it has been in my head for 2 weeks and I am still not annoyed! I can only assume that the Recording Academy does not, as a collective group, consist of large amounts of 2 year olds. 
• I find it completely fascinating that I did not hear about this at the office water cooler - seriously the best TV I have seen in YEARS: check it here.

Just when you think they have lost their appeal, they pull you pack in. I can't wait to see what they come up with in another 25 years! You know, when I'm 35.

C: Jamie Lynn Spears is a genius

I know, you are thinking that I'm being sarcastic or have consumed too much wine. Neither is true (though I seriously wish I had consumed some wine instead of the dayquil that I'm rockin' right now....more on that later). As the 29-year old mother (yes, I'm really 29...seriously....look at my driver's license) of a 2-year old boy, I have come to realize that JLS is way smarter than anyone gives her credit for.

Here is the thing about kids - they consume every last ounce of energy you possess on a daily basis and then keep mining for more. They leave you in a state of sheer exhaustion every second of everyday. Here is the thing about teenagers - they have energy. Sooooo, if you pair them together in a teenage mother scenario, you have created the perfect equation. What's that? You want me to expound on this theory....my pleasure:

1. Teens have crazy amounts of energy - they just act lazy to fool their parents. Point-in-case, when I was 17, I spent every night of an entire summer staying out until at least 2am participating in various shenanigans and then I woke up every morning at 6am to go to my 7am - 4pm job. Day in, day out. I fueled myself on donuts and coffee and cup-o-noodle soup and thought of it as my best summer ever. Going months on 4 hours of  sleep is precisely the skill required for successful parenting.
   
2. Exhausted parents make the same decisions as teenagers - at least 10 times a day I make a knowingly horrible parenting decision because I do not have the energy to make the right decision. For example, my son has McDonald's french fries for dinner 2-3x a week. Now I know that french fries are not a nutritious dinner choice, but I just cannot seem to gather the energy to combat his screeching of "eat" on our way home from daycare and the thought of cooking dinner is hilarious. A teen might feed her child french fries not realizing it is a sub par meal but no matter the reason - exhaustion or ignorance, the kid gets a crappy dinner.
   
3. Teenagers have stronger immune systems than adults - back to the dayquil. My son is always sick. My son always gets me sick. I am always sick and taking care of a sick child. It sucks. When I was a teenager, I got sick once. Once in 4 years.
   
4. Kids are money vacuums - no matter how much money you have, they will consume every last cent you have. If you have lots of excess funds, then you will find yourself buying every toy in Target and a new outfit for everyday. You will buy the most expensive diapers and pay for the most expensive health care and daycare and every other kind of care. And then you will have no more excess funds. Same holds true if you do not have a lot of money (like a teen mother, perhaps), but you will just spend less in total. Instead of spending all your money on crap, you will have to allocate your limited funds to things that matter (food) and your kid will likely be better off in the long run.
   
5. Having kids early means you get rid of kids early - young adults are moving back home after college and remaining financially dependent on their parents until their mid-20's (a depressing 77% of recent college grads end up back home). So if you have kids at 30, you are going to be financially tied down until you are at least 55. If you have kids at 18, then you reach financial freedom at the ripe young age of 43. With an average life expectancy of 78, that gives you nearly 35 years of fun before you kick it. You get to spend you prime earning years actually enjoying those earnings.