The Road to...

Greetings from the Diva Household where Things 1, 2, and 3 (with a little help from Princess the Wonder Dog) have turned our normally semi-chaotic home into complete, utter madness.

While we were all still adjusting to the arrival of Little Darth (uhm, yeah, back in OCTOBER), the holidays decided to creep up on us and land firmly in our home, trampling our precious routines to bits.

I had every intention of blogging daily weekly semi-regularly while on my leisurely maternity leave. As you can tell by my PLETHORA of postings since October 1st, when Little Darth arrived, I have FAILED miserably at that!

I had every intention of organizing my closet while on my leisurely maternity leave. I am SO not showing you pictures of my closet. Let's just call that a big fat FAIL as well. The good news, however, for when I actually get around to doing that particular task, is that I've lost all of my baby weight and am down 10+ pounds from my pre-baby weight, which means I'll be ditching quite a bit of clothing weight as well. Woo-hoo!

I had every intention of taking lots of pictures of Little Darth and his big brothers while on my leisurely maternity leave. You know that theory about having progressively fewer pictures of the children as your family grows. True statement, that. And the whole taking more pics thing? FAIL. So much so that Diva Nana asked if she was EVER going to get a new picture of Little Darth.

So this mass chaos in the Diva Household? I'm blaming it on the big plans I had for my leisurely maternity leave. As the saying goes, "The road to you-know-where is paved with good intentions."

My advice for all of you new moms and soon-to-be new moms? Make no plans, large or small for your "leisurely maternity leave". Just watch your kiddo(s) grow, and enjoy the quiet.

Hopefully your road will end in a far less chaotic place! :)

My Three Sons

Well, it's an announcement that is two weeks overdue, but since Mr. Baby graced us with his presence a few days early (albeit with a bit of encouragement), I suppose I'm okay with the ANNOUNCEMENT being overdue instead of the baby! :)

Yes, it's true, I'm now outnumbered four to one in the Diva Household. Well, if you count Princess the Wonder Dog, I suppose it's only four to two, but as a former charge from my babysitting days commented, "We had her fixed and now we're not sure if she's a boy or a girl".

In light of my "advanced maternal age", my doctor recommended an induction a few days before my due date, so Mr. Baby made his appearance on 10/1/10. Pretty cool, huh? The brothers met for the first time on the 2nd.


The Tweenager is taking a very grown-up approach to his new baby brother. He's a huge help, being a very mature ten years old, and he loves holding Mr. Baby as long as he doesn't have to change diapers or deal with crying.


The Manimal feels the same way about crying babies, but he has been amazingly wonderful with his new "big brother" status. As an additional bonus, he's not called Mr. Baby "Darth Vader" even once!

Wait. Do you know about Darth Vader? I can't remember if I shared our naming dilemma with my bloggy friends. A few months ago, The Manimal, having a SERIOUS Star Wars obsession, decided that our baby should bear the name "Darth Vader". A few weeks before the birth, he even decided on middle names, and Mr. Baby was christened "Darth Vader Clonetrooper Stormtrooper Divalastname". He wouldn't even DISCUSS the name we'd chosen, simply dismissing us with a "I don't want to talk about that name, Mommy".

At any rate, our big/little brother seems to have forgotten that he ever wanted to name the little guy for the Dark Lord (AmenandthankyouJesus). The name may make a reappearance as Mr. Baby's blog moniker, but we'll see.

The force did seem to be with our little man, as he exhibited incredible head control only 36 hours after his birth.


I'm fortunate to be able to take maternity leave from my job until after Christmas. I'm fairly certain it's going to take me that long to get used to having three children: The Tweenager, The Manimal and Little Darth.

Hopefully the force will be with me!

Music Monday: I Will Survive

Yeah, just when you think things can't get any crazier, they usually do. :) Nothing big to report in the Diva Household, just trying to wrap up my work world so I can go on maternity leave with a clear conscience and trying (with my wonderful DH doing most of the home work) to prepare our house for the impending arrival of Mr. Baby.

I'm always amazed how such a small little creature can create so much havoc without even being present in the world yet!

After three weeks of "nothing yet" from the doctor, I spent the weekend squirming and waddling through contractions and backache pain, which leads me to believe that tomorrow's doctor's appointment will be different.

Of course, as I reminded DH, at this stage, I could have contractions for a week or two with no visible (or invisible, as the case may be) progress.

The Manimal has FINALLY relented (sort of) in his quest to name Mr. Baby "Darth Vader". More accurately, he wants to call him "Darth Vader Clonetrooper Stormtrooper DivaLastName".

He's nothing if not persistent. He "earned" a new Storm Trooper helmet by (FINALLY) sleeping in his own bed. Then he requested that I call him "Rex" (the name of the Storm Trooper in question). When I explained that Rex wasn't his name, he said "just call me that, Mommy." To which I replied that he could "just call" the baby Darth Vader, but Mommy & Daddy would call him by his given name. After a brief pause, he ACTUALLY agreed to that.

Then he said "But I don't want to hear anything more about that other name."

The Tweenager is probably ready for the Mr. Baby, but, being ten, he's too cool to really talk about it. Plus, he's ten.

Did I mention he's ten? Really, if I would've known that my sweet nine year-old would've turned into a moody, attitude-driven pre-teen, I'd've requested a skip right to 18.

Which would likely bring its own problems, I know.

Which brings me to today's Music Monday. Love the song and the video cracks me up every.freaking.time I see it.

State of Confusion

It's no secret to any woman who's been pregnant that babies steal your brain.

Yes, it's true. I don't care what Discovery Health says, with ALL THREE of my pregnancies, I've been "dumbed down". I forget things, process thoughts way more slowly, the whole nine yards.

Unfortunately, in my experience, it often takes up to a year AFTER the baby comes to regain full mental capacity. I also figure there's some sort of direct correlation between the number of children a woman has and the number of brain cells lost to "baby brain".

As crazy as baby brain makes me, though, I do know that I've not completely lost my common sense.

One of the (many) things we had to replace for Mr. Baby was his crib mattress. While we hadn't yet gotten rid of the crib itself (AmenandthankyouJesus!), the mattress was reincarnated as a bed for Princess the Wonder Dog, and, while I'm all about recycling, there's just no way that it was going back into the crib.

So I went online to one of my new favorite shopping sites, Amazon.com. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm late to the party. I've had baby brain for the past nine months.

Anyway, I discovered that there are about as many different types of crib mattresses as there are babies. And while I love my children, and want the best I can afford for them, I'm pretty confident that Mr. Baby doesn't need a $299.00 crib mattress.

So off to Walmart.com for me. Now, I'm not a big fan of the Evil Empire, but sadly, for us frugal moms, it works. I found a lovely, highly rated Kolcraft brand crib mattress for a mere $36 in their "Site to Store" program. I called my local Walmart to see if they had that particular model in stock. The associate was gone for a minute to check.

WM Associate: "Yes ma'am, we have that model in stock. It's $57."

Me: "FIFTY SEVEN DOLLARS?! For that model?"

WMA: "Yes ma'am."

Me: "Uhm...it's available on the Walmart.com website for $36. That's a $21 difference!"

WMA: "Yes ma'am. I understand that some things are priced differently on the website."

I don't know if you've used the Site to Store feature of Walmart.com, but it's pretty simple. You place your order and pay for it online, and they ship it directly to the store at no additional charge. We've purchased a few things through the site, and while we've noticed the occasional minor price difference, we've never purchased anything that is marked up more than 50%.

Here are the options as my baby-affected brain worked it out:

a) I can walk into Walmart today and pay $57 plus tax for the mattress.
b) I can order the mattress through Site to Store, pay $36 plus tax, and they will ship the mattress from the warehouse (even though they have them in-stock). In 1-2 weeks, pick it up at the store.
c) I can order the mattress through Site to Store, pay $36 plus tax, plus $3.97 shipping (all STILL $17 cheaper than option a), and they will deliver it TO MY DOOR in 1 week.

Can you guess which one I chose?

I realize that we, as a society, are more into immediate gratification than thinking through things and saving money, but I'm really confused as to the price difference in this situation.

And that's not my baby brain talking!

Random Dancing!

If you're the parent of a tweenager (or in my case The Tweenager), it's likely you'll know exactly WHO does random dancing. This post doesn't really have anything to do with her, but it was the first thing that popped into my head when I thought of creating a random blog post.

So here they are, in random order, the random thoughts that have been dancing through my head lately.

• Mr. Baby is perfectly content to stay where he is. Since his lease isn't technically up for another three weeks, that's just fine with me. I would, however, prefer if he would stop trying to dislocate my ribs.

• I'm pretty sure that if moms were in charge of the school district budget, we wouldn't have nearly the financial woes we do now.

• I'm fairly certain if The Tweenager was a girl, I'd've killed him by now.

• I clearly was mistaken when I assumed that boys don't develop "the attitude" as early as girls do.

• Diva Nana & Diva Papa are on a fabulous road trip with my globetrotting Diva Godmother. They were recently in NY State and stopped at Ft. Ticonderoga. I asked if they were bringing us back some pencils. They didn't get it.

• Diva Nana is very concerned that Mr. Baby might make his appearance early, ie: before they return. She was happy to hear my first random thought.

• The Manimal is quite taken by the small stash of teeny-tiny diapers that we have. He had to try one on for size, even though it would barely cover one of his preschool-sized butt cheeks. He was a bit upset when I told him that the baby could no longer use that diaper since the tape closure was torn from its side and attached somewhere else on the diaper.

• I just used the phrase "butt cheek" in my blog. I'm pretty sure it's the first time I ever used such a phrase, and the fact that it tickles me a bit only reinforces my "Oh Lord help me" thought that in less than a month I'll be the mother of THREE BOY CHILDREN.

And now, just in case you're not the parent of a tweenager and are still wondering about the title, I leave you with this:

The Early Bird

After two children, it shouldn't surprise me, and yet somehow, it does.

I don't like to do housework. I'm not a very good housekeeper. My Diva Grandma used to have a sign in her house that pretty much summed things up.

"My house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy."

I don't like to do laundry, primarily because it seems like it NEVER FREAKING ENDS. Just when I think I've conquered Mt. Laundry, I realize that my family is still clothed, meaning there's STILL laundry to be done.

I despise doing dishes for much the same reason as laundry, but I think that hatred is more deep-seeded, going back to my childhood, as it was my job growing up. I had a tendency to rush through my job and, well, let's just say that I didn't always get ALL of the food off the dishes. My punishment, which I remember having to do only twice, was to wash ALL of the dishes in the cupboard.

All of them.

In one sitting. Or standing, as it were.

But I digress.

One of the known side effects of late pregnancy is the nesting instinct. At 36 weeks, I shouldn't be surprised by my recent burning desires to wash all of those tiny clothes and seemingly endless supply of burp cloths.

And yet, much like this pregnancy itself, it was an enormous surprise when I spent the better part of an afternoon this past weekend doing just that. I went through all of The Manimal's clothes, packing away what no longer fit him, and organizing and arranging his closet and dresser in order to make room for the array of tiny things.

And then I cleaned the powder room downstairs.

And conquered Mt. Laundry and Mt. Dishes.

And cleaned the kitchen sink.

And made brownies.

And marinated steak.

And then sat down and explained to my family that, while this behavior might please them immensely, it was, most emphatically, a temporary, 36 weeks pregnant, situation.

Still Kicking

Both the baby and I are still kicking (and waving to Diva Nana). Just been crazy busy. Or as I like to say "Gone Crazy, Back Soon".

Random tidbits to keep you entertained...

• Baby #3 is at 29 weeks now. Only 11 weeks to go. I am SO not ready for this.

• The Manimal is INSISTENT that we are naming the previously aforementioned child "Darth Vader". Won't he be shocked?

• Diva Husband is INSISTENT that we are naming him "Jedi". Again with the shock.

• The Tweenager has been at Camp for almost four weeks. He absolutely loves it, and I love that he loves it.

• I'm not loving that he turned TEN this past Sunday. Ten. He was born a mere 5 days before my 31st birthday. Do the math.

• Did I mention that my baby turned TEN? As in double digits, fifth grade, only six more years until he's driving?

• Oh, wait. In our fair state he can get his learner's permit at 15. Joy.

So yes, I'm still kicking. Crazily, but still kicking nonetheless. Hope you're "still kicking" as well!

Post-It Note Tuesday: True Story

It's Post-It Note Tuesday again! Why not join us? All the cool bloggers are doing it! You can find more of us over at SupahMommy's. Today's theme is "True Story".