What I Wish for 2011

I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions (I have two standard ones: lose a little weight, exercise a little more--that's pretty much it.)

Rather, I'd like to think ahead to what I wish for 2011.

First, I wish for good health for all my family and friends, especially my husband, who went from never having surgery to having two in one year. The first one, back in July, was more scary and potentially life-threatening, but both have been tough on him and on all of us as he tries to get back to normal. Please let him have a healthy year this coming year!

Second, I wish for more time...time for fun with my daughter, time for myself to unwind and be pampered a little, time for reconnecting as a couple with my husband, time savored with my parents, and time spent catching up with good friends.

Third, world peace. That would be pretty awesome. :)

Fourth, a few fun adventures with my family. This last year, we visited family in Florida, Canada, Alabama, and spent a week on Survivor--I mean, in Jamaica--on vacation. In February, I'm taking my daughter to Arizona to visit my two best friends from college. One is single and the other is married with four children under the age of five (guess which one we're staying with LOL), so the weekend will definitely be an adventure! We don't have anything else planned at the moment, but I'm excited to think about where 2011 can take us.

That's really it...2010 has not been a horrible year. After all, it's the year my daughter learned to spell her name, count to 15, talk in more complete sentences, give hugs and kisses, answer the phone, use a computer, and swim like a fish! It's the first year she could wear her hair in pigtails and appreciate a pretty outfit as she did tonight, saying "That's cute!"

My daughter proclaimed this outfit "Cute"! Future Glam-O-Mommy, I hope!

This is my daughter with one of her potential future husbands--my friend's son.
She's looking a little less glam after spilling juice down her shirt at dinner this evening
at our "Early New Year's Eve Party" aka "New Year's Eve With Small Children
That Ends by 10!"

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm Still Here

It's been quite a month. I've intended to blog several times, but have had trouble summoning energy this month.

There's something about having a months-long buildup to a long, fabulous vacation you've planned out in your head, complete with gorgeous beach pictures for your Christmas card, that leaves you completely drained and devoid of energy when said fabulous vacation unravels in a swirl of tropical storm winds, continuous rain, and lack of continuous power in the hotel room you are stuck in due to the aforementioned continuous rain.

It started well, then...

disaster struck (tree knocked down outside our room).

It looked like this for 80 percent of our week..

So, yeah, Jamaica did not turn out to be the fabulous vacation I hoped for. We had decent weather for the first 2.5 days and then the rain started and did not let up until we went home. Which might've been okay if the power had stayed on in our room. But we had about 1.5 days of no power in our room. Ever changed a dirty diaper on a wiggly toddler in a dark room? It's messy and no fun.

And still, it all might've been okay, if it was just the power in our building or room...however, it was the power on our side of the resort. So if we didn't have power in our room, neither did three of the restaurants, the kids' camp for our daughter, the XBox gaming room, and the spa...pretty much all the other things you do at a resort when it's raining and you can't swim. (To their credit, the spa managed to keep going by candlelight when the power was out, which was awesome.)

No power also means no air conditioning, which means massive humidity, which means feeling wet and sweaty for five days straight. Yuck. I'm high maintenance. I'm Glam-O-Mommy. This is my nightmare, people!

Mommy should be in this picture instead of me, because the bad weather turned her into Mommy the Grouch!

We ate almost every meal the last four days in the same single restaurant on the side of the resort with power...the last two days I was so tired of the food and depressed, I quit eating. Seriously. I came home three pounds lighter from vacation. WHICH NEVER HAPPENS.

It was incredibly stressful, especially not knowing if and when the power might go out again, and what might go wrong next. I couldn't relax. I was completely on edge. I was frustrated that the resort didn't seem to have a decent plan in place for handling the storm and the power outages. (They couldn't relocate the kids' camp to the side of the resort with a power? Add extra activities in the areas with power to give people something to do? Had they never had a storm before?!) All in all, I came away feeling like I'd spent a week on Survivor, which is a show I am not cut out for. It was like we went camping in the jungle instead of staying at a nice luxury resort. All that money down the drain.

Now, I should mention that while I had a pretty unhappy time on this vacation, my daughter loved it! She's two, so it's not like all of the weather and lack of power and sweating meant anything to her. And since they managed to keep the power on on the side of the resort where they did the nightly Sesame Street shows, she got to dance with Elmo, Ernie, and the gang for one hour every night--AND LOVED IT. She was a total Elmo groupie, standing right in front of the stage with her little arms up to him. It was the absolute saving grace of the whole trip, because I enjoyed watching her have such a fun time, even when I felt miserable. :)

ELMO! I'm right here!!

I don't know why Mommy is so upset. I'm having an AWESOME time with my Sesame Street friends.

And I don't mind that this is the dirtiest I've ever been in my life, because check out the cool sunken boat behind me!

Obviously, I need to take a page from her book about making the best of a bad situation. :)

Unfortunately, I came home drained and depressed, and that feeling has dragged on a bit. It took me two full weeks to unpack all the suitcases and do all the laundry, something I usually do right away. I let the house get a little crazy until the maids came to clean, which only added to my depression. I had a hard time focusing at work.

Worst of all, I feel terrible whining and complaining and being depressed about my vacation, because it's what I call a "high-class problem" to have...not that I'm high class or anything, just that it's not a real problem. It's not a real disaster. We all survived, we were lucky, our vacation just kind of sucked. Some people lost homes in the storm. Other people have real crises in their lives. I shouldn't complain.

However, I can't help feeling let down and like we wasted a bunch of money (oh, what else I could do with that money!) and I think I needed to write about this one more time just to purge it from my soul and move on, you know?

I've turned a corner in the last two weeks...got the laundry caught up and the house mostly back in order. Took my daughter to get two-year portraits made, which made me happy, since I didn't have family beach portraits from Jamaica (Note to self: next time, take family pictures on beach at first opportunity). Went to dinners with girlfriends and three Spurs games, which always cheers me up. And I'm rocking and rolling at work too.

Our ONLY family picture from the entire week. Cute, but not exactly what I planned for our Christmas card. Note that my daughter is snuggling up with Elmo. We tried to take a few family pictures after the characters left, but she pitched a fit and tried to follow Elmo, so this was it.

So I'm still here, I'm moving on, and I will try to get back to regular blogging (and NO WHINING) soon.

Things I'm Learning in Jamaica

1. That you can chew pure sugar cane and it will pour sugary sweetness into your mouth. But you only chew it...no swallowing. This is thanks to our bus driver (we were the only ones on the bus from the airport to our resort in Negril) who pulled over to buy some for us to try when my husband asked what it was the people were selling on the corner.

2. That my daughter, who has always been a great sleeper and early riser right along with my husband, may be turning to the dark side and becoming a night person like me! She started out getting up early, but these last two nights she has suddenly been finding excuse after excuse to stay up late...wanting to read books and listen to music. Hilariously, she has also figured out that telling us "I'm stinky!" or "I go poopy!" sometimes warrants a diaper check and has used this to get out of bed. She's also tried this when she's done with dinner and ready to go do something else, but after the second time she pulled this trick, we figured out that she KNOWS this will make us act and so now we are ignoring this excuse LOL!

3. That if there is something on the buffet line called the "Bubble and Squeak," it's essentially a potato pancake. No idea why it is called this interesting name.

4. That a man walking by on the beach will offer to sell you marijuana right in front of your two-year-old daughter. This happened to my husband when he took our daughter for an early morning stroll on the beach. He refused the man's offer, of course.

5. That it's a good thing you brought enough swimsuits for you and your daughter to wear a different one practically every day because it's so humid the wet ones you hang up will never dry out.

6. That upgrading your room to concierge level is awesome because you have a mini fridge in the room stocked with Cokes, Diet Cokes, Sprite, water, juice, ginger ale, and Jamaican beer, and it's refilled every day...and it's all included-no extra charge.

7. That maybe planning a trip to the Caribbean in September/hurricane season wasn't the best idea, now that Tropical Depression 16 aka soon-to-be Tropical Storm Nicole has been dumping loads of rain directly on Jamaica for 20 hours, even though it's 200 miles away from the "center" of the storm and not even ON the projected storm path. Move on storm!

8. That you should've taken your family portraits on the beach the first day, since now it may rain for the rest of your time here. So much for the Christmas card picture...

9. That champagne flavored with peach and blackberry schnapps is kind of delish.

10. That your daughter is going to be a terror at concerts in her teens, considering she spent all evening trying to bum rush the stage during Bert and Ernie's Island Adventure Stage Show! I felt like security trying to get her off the stairs to the stage--she couldn't understand why she couldn't go up there to be with her Sesame Street pals. Thank goodness the gang all came down into the audience at the end of the show and danced with all the little kids and she got hugs from everyone and danced with Ernie!

11. That Arnold Schwarzenegger had reason to be frustrated in Kindergarten Cop when he had to keep explaining to the one kid, "IT'S NOT A TOOM-AH!" I've spent all day the last several days telling my daughter, "IT'S NOT BROKEN!" as she declares EVERYTHING-the TV, the phone, my iPod, the computer, a closed door, you name it-"IT'S BWOKEN!" if it does not appear to be doing what she thinks it's supposed to/wants it to do!

12. That generally, when a resort throws a talent show and the guests are supposed to provide the talent, it should be called Beaches Guests Don't Got Talent. One kid did a cheer no one could hear, one clogged, one sang Don't Stop Believing by Journey and forgot the words halfway through (luckily for her, everyone from Generation X sang along FOR her-poor thing)...two adults sang a semi-nice version of I Can't Help Falling in Love With You, and a guy did a drum solo with the band. I'd say it was a toss up between the duet and the drummer, but we didn't stay to see who was declared the most talented of the talent-less.

13. That I cannot go without sunblock for two hours. Evidence: the sunburn I got on my shoulders on our first morning here. I have no excuse...even though it was overcast, I should know better. Have used 90 SPF ever since...well, until the rain started, anyway.

14. That my kid, like her father, is not going to be prone to sunburn--she's just going to turn beautifully brown. Lucky!! Using 90 SPF on her too.

15. That even when you have internet access in Jamaica, abc.com and hulu.com will not let you watch episodes of Castle online since you are "outside the United States and its territories." Seriously?!

16. That the Jamaican people, while generally lovely and friendly, all seem to suffer the same deficiency: giving incomplete instructions. We took our daughter to play in the toddler pool at the kids' camp and decided to leave her there for a bit since she was having fun. The nannies told us to bring them a change of clothes and diapers for her. We walk to room, obtain said items, and return to camp. Then, they tell us they also need us to bring our own wipes, causing a return trip to our room. At the airport, one customs person told me I could put my daughter on my customs/immigration form. Another told me she had to have her own form, but I only needed to fill out the front top section. A third told me I had to fill in the whole thing, both sides, top and bottom. @^#&$*@!

17. That I'm not the thinnest mama here rocking the bikini (a couple of anorexic looking moms have me wondering how they ever produced a baby from their skinny bods!), but I'm definitely fine to do so. Others not so much.

18. That one upside to staying at a family resort is NO NAKED PEOPLE. When we went to Sandals (a couples resort) just down the beach four years ago, we had some people going topless and we kayaked by the Hedonism resort and got the full frontal from another guy who seemed to be waving us over ("Paddle faster!" I said to my hubby.) I'm not against nakedness per se (good nakedness), but the kind of people who generally go naked at these resorts? NOT THE KIND YOU EVER WANT TO SEE NAKED. It's never the hot people, just the delusionally uninhibited.

I'm sure I've learned more in these past few days, but I should sign off for now. I have a hot breakfast date with my husband, daughter, and the Sesame Street gang. Anyone know a good "Stop Raining" Dance?

Random Wednesday Thoughts

I go to Jamaica in 10 days. Only things standing between me and Jamaica at this point? One major project at work that has to be completed, the bikini wax I have scheduled for Saturday which is absolutely essential for spending a week in a bikini, and packing.

And it would be great to lose like five pounds between now and then, but since I'm not, I'm still going to rock my bikinis and rock them proudly for two reasons: (a) I don't know anyone in Jamaica so who cares what they think of my slight mommy pooch, and (b) We are going to Beaches, which is a family resort, so who cares what a bunch of little kids and Elmo and Big Bird think of me in a bikini? I actually ordered a new bikini from Victoria's Secret recently and, upon trying it on, worried that the bottom might be a smidge small. I mean, it covered everything, which is key, but I still felt a LEETLE nekkid in it. (Nekkid=naked and up to no good LOL!) I asked my husband what he thought and he replied: "It's not too small. You look good." Love my husband!

When I daydream about our Jamaica trip, it's all sunshine and Bob Marley songs and relaxing under palm trees. Which is how our last trip to Jamaica, four child-free years ago, was. I imagine this time is going to be more of the chasing-after-my-toddler-while-trying-to-keep-my boobs-and-butt-covered variety, with a Sesame Street soundtrack and no time for palm trees, but that's OK. My husband and I considered going to Jamaica and leaving our daughter with my parents, the grandparentals. But we like taking her places with us and seeing her have new experiences in new countries and cultures. And she loves Elmo and the gang, so I think it's going to be fun for all of us. And if I really need to relax under a palm tree, I can put her in the little Sesame Street day camp for a few hours LOL.

So this past weekend, my mother-in-law [MIL] was in town visiting us from Toronto. (See? Not a smooth transition--this is going to be a very random post.) The good part of her visit was that it was only three days. Oh, and I did enjoy shopping for shoes and sunglasses with her for two hours. That was actually really fun. But three days is about my limit.

My MIL is a nice person, but she analyzes everything everyone is doing to the point that she doesn't really enjoy anything. We took her out to eat at a nice restaurant in a nearby small town Saturday and we were sitting on the patio overlooking the river, enjoying the breeze and the food, and she was analyzing everyone's meal to determine whose was the healthiest option (my mother, the Nana's, which kind of upset her because she thought when she ordered hers it would be the healthiest) and whose was the worst (my husband's--chopped steak smothered in queso-yum) and sharing facts about the little town we were in from the brochure on our table. On the way home that night, she commented on how excited my parents were to see my daughter and how much she could tell they enjoyed playing with her, and all I could think was, yes, that's because they are her GRANDPARENTS and that's how most grandparents are! (She's not...she loves my daughter, but she's mostly focused on herself and what she wants--I attribute this to the fact that she's been divorced and living alone for about 30 years.)

The most trying thing about my MIL though is that she considers herself an expert on everything. She once explained to me what an oil change WAS and why she got them done. (Um, hello...I've been driving for 20 years...I think I grasp what an oil change is LOL!) She crossed the room to get her reading glasses this weekend to analyze the nutritious facts on the Graduates toddler meals we occasionally (read: regularly) feed our daughter and then lectured us on preservatives (even though the meals don't have any!) and fiber intake and sodium. Gah.

On the same infamous drive home Saturday night, she informed me that my daughter's swim coach was a lesbian, a fact she determined by observing my daughter's class for 15 minutes that morning. OK, to be fair, first she ASKED me if she was a lesbian. I replied that I didn't know, but that she was a good teacher and was very sweet with my daughter and the other babies. THEN she informed me that she was. "She had that weird tattoo of a pinup girl on her arm--she's a lesbian," she informed me. Then, she proceeded to explain for 10 hellish minutes how some lesbians have short hair, but some don't and she works with a lot of gay people, so SHE KNOWS. Meanwhile, I sat there praying for her to shut up with all of her stupid comments about gay people!

For me, when I first met my daughter's swim coach, I was a little puzzled as to why she would want a tattoo of a pinup girl in a red 50s-style bikini tattooed on her arm, but that's because I'm not a tattoo person. I didn't consider whether it meant she was gay or not, because I just don't care. I went to a small liberal arts university. I have gay friends. I don't have issues with that. I just don't like tattoos. I thought about it for all of about three seconds before she opened her mouth to start class and was just a very sweet early-20s girl who is amazingly patient and has fun while teaching my daughter and the other babies in her class. And that's ALL I care about. So I was especially irritated because I hadn't realized my MIL had some sort of issues with the gays she knows so much about LOL, and because HELLO--she was supposed to be watching her granddaughter swim! Not analyzing everything as usual. Sigh.

Anyhoo, let's just say I'm glad she lives in Canada and I only see her once or twice a year. How much was I over her visit by the time we put her on the plane? Well, despite my recent post about margaritas, I am a very infrequent drinker, maybe having one drink every few weeks or sometimes months. After we dropped her at the airport on Sunday and went home and put our daughter down for a nap, I opened a bottle of wine, drank three-fourths of it, and took a big nap myself!

Jamaica can't come fast enough.

Break the Funk: Ask Glam-O-Mommy

Glam-O-Readers, I've been in a bit of a funk this past week. Not sure if it's a post-baby's birthday letdown or pre-mother-in-law's visit meltdown (Cannot. Keep. House. Clean. EEK) or if it's a I'm-Working-on-Two-High-Level-and-Highly-Annoying-Projects-at-Work-That-Will-Never-End breakdown, or just the fact that I haven't had a vacation since February and Jamaica is still 20 days away.

The funk has extended to my blog. I keep starting posts, getting a few paragraphs in, and then setting them aside, unsure if I want to declare my thoughts and feelings on a variety of topics...just at a bit of a loss as to what to say.

So, I'm looking to you for ideas...what do you WANT to know about me? Or any thoughts/positions/opinions I have on anything related to motherhood or anything else? I reserve the right to not answer certain questions, as I'm obviously protecting my privacy a little bit here, but other than that, ask away. I'm generally an open book in real life, and am curious what you want to know about me, based on what you've already read/seen here.

Post your questions in the comments...and I'll post a response blog answering the questions soon!

Come on...you know you want to ask me something! Here's your chance. :)

Vanity, Thy Name is Glam-O-Mommy

A major part of my feeling of self-worth lives and dies by the state of my hair.

If my hair looks good, there's almost nothing that can ruin my day. If my hair looks bad, well, the day is only going to go downhill from there.

Lately, I've been having LOTS of bad hair days. This is partially because about seven months ago I let my stylist of 17 years convince me to change the way he does my highlights. For about five years or so, I've sported chunky double blonde highlights set off with double lowlights. This makes me look very blonde, which makes me very happy. (I was born a blonde, so I'm always trying to return my hair to its natural state LOL.) He really thought I should go back to thin blonde highlights and few lowlights, with more of my regular (I refuse to call the dirty dishwater color that grows in my natural color) color coming through.

When I decided to try it his way, I instantly regretted it. Not only did I look less blonde, my roots became visible much more quickly than normal. For seven months, I've been trying to get him to switch my highlights back to the chunky double highlight/double lowlight look I love...the look that feels like me.

Then, July happened. Let's take stock of my July, shall we? Hurricane Alex hit the first week, which meant I worked extra long days at work and missed out on time with my kid, which makes me unhappy. By the time that was over, I had a horrible cold, which dragged on through the next week and caused me to miss some work. Then, just as I was getting over that, my husband had emergency surgery and was in the hospital for three days, and then was still down for the count recovering all this last week. This meant that I again missed work, putting me behind on a big project, plus I was extra stressed taking care of both my dear husband and my daughter without his help, PLUS I missed my normal highlight appointment, meaning my already scraggly, rootsy hair had to stay that way for an extra week.

So, I've felt kind of like Crap Walking all month, but especially the last two weeks. And when my parents offered to keep my daughter yesterday (hubby's not allowed to lift her for FOUR MORE WEEKS-GAH), so I could go get my hair and nails done and do a little personal pampering, I jumped at the chance! When I called my stylist to make my hair appointment, I was all, "Look, dude...I am not letting you talk me out of this again...I WANT my chunky double highlights and lowlights back! I want my MOJO back!"

Two points here:

• I said "dude" to my stylist because he is a 6"4" straight guy (strange for a stylist, I know) who has curly 80s rocker hair all the way down to his waist. I'm not even exaggerating this description. He once got mad at me when I told him I had DREAMED he had cut his hair short like Sammy Hagar did when he was in Van Halen. Last night, he was going to see the Scorpions in concert here in San Antonio. Because I've been going to him for 17 years, I can call him dude and be completely honest with him about what I want. I realized yesterday he is one of the few people I can talk to this honestly LOL, and it's very refreshing. :)
• The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "mojo" as (1) a magic spell, hex, or charm or (2) magical power. I truly believe my hair is the font of all my mojo and has magical powers. But only when the highlights are RIGHT!

So yesterday was a fabulous day for me. I got a mani/pedi for the first time in at least a month. My stylist willingly obliged me and did my highlights the way I like them, which has made me SO happy. (In his appointment book, next to my name, he had written, "Wants mojo back!" LOL) Then, I got a massage and a facial and capped off the day with dinner with all of the people I love: my sweet parents, my dear husband, and my darling daughter.

Am I vain? YES. But I was thinking about it this morning and I realized I'm a lot LESS VAIN than I used to be.

As a mom, there are lots of situations you find yourself in where you just can't take the time to care about your personal appearance or how you look to other people.

This morning, for example, I took my daughter to a different pool because our swim class was cancelled. I would've preferred to carry my daughter about in the water and practice some of our swim class activities, like back floating, kicking, going underwater briefly, etc. This could all be done in the four- to -five-feet deep section of the pool, so that my poochy mom belly and flabby thighs would be nicely covered up by the water as they are in swim class. My daughter preferred to sit in the shallow two inches of water at the entry end and splash, which meant that is exactly where I sat with her, poochy belly and flabby thighs out above the water for the world to see. :) She was happy as a clam, and I was happy she was happy. This is a far cry from the pre-baby me that only ventured in a pool to cool off, never got my hair or face wet, and inclined on a lounge chair with one leg cocked up at a precise angle to make my belly look as flat as possible LOL.

(OK, technically, I am working out twice a week to try and tighten the belly and thighs up before our Jamaica trip; however, realistically I know that I will spend very little time in Jamaica lounging on a chair under a palm tree like I did on my last visit and most of my time carrying her or chasing after her and looking crazily disheveled and wet like I did at the pool today. A girl can dream though.)

Other situations I've faced as a mom where all vanity and caring-what-other-people-think-of-me went out the window:

• Infertility treatment. Everyone and their brother got a look at my hoo-ha during this time--the first part of my journey as a  mother.
• Giving birth. Everyone and their brother got a look at my hoo-ha, I threw up twice in front of a room full of people, and continually felt stuff other people could see gushing from me for several hours. BUT I got the epidural, which made all of that go out the window and was A-MAZ-ING, and my beautiful daughter came out healthy and loudly a mere eight hours after the whole thing began. AWESOME.
• Explosive diapers. My daughter has gifted me with several of these, most memorably as we descended into the San Antonio International Airport. You know, on the descent. Where you cannot leave your seat. Where my husband and I belatedly wrapped my daughter and her RIVER of poop in her changing pad and I ran off the plane (not really, even the threat of poop doesn't stop the idiots in front of you from taking forever to get their damn suitcases out of the overhead bins) to the bemused stares of the surrounding passengers and had to inform the flight attendants to check seat 24B for poop on the way out. Where I then had to strip my daughter completely naked, wipe all the poop off of her and myself and change her into another outfit to the bemused stares of the surrounding female passengers, who had all come to the bathroom directly off of our flight and seemed to be enjoying my Poopapalooza.
• Vomit. The first time my daughter ever threw up, I tried to catch it in my hands to save the couch. Take it from me...that doesn't work. It leaves you with a couch still covered in vomit and HANDS covered in vomit...hands that need to pick up your baby who is freaked out and covered in vomit. Luckily, this was at home. I've also worn another kid's vomit on my pants back to work after feeding my daughter her bottle at school. Word of advice: identify the stealth vomiters in your baby's day school class early and do not sit near them while feeding your own baby. It's bad enough to wear your own kid's vomit...worse to wear some other kid's!
• Insane crying, part I. This has really only happened to me twice in public. Once was at my daughter's first swim class, where she cried hysterically from the beginning to the end of the lesson, all the while clinging to my neck and face and HAIR and almost exposing my boobs to the assembled parents watching their older children's lessons. I just kept going and tried to keep my boobs covered and my hair out of my eyes and now she loves swimming.
• Insane crying, part II. The other time was worse. My daughter really is generally a good traveler, explosive poopy diaper aside (that was the airlines' fault, we had experienced several flight delays, but the kind where you are on the jetway and they won't let you get up from your seat and people don't like it if you change a diaper right on the seat, so you try to wait the situation out, thinking, "We'll be there soon."). Counting each leg of a trip as its own flight, she has been on 14 flights in under two years. The explosive diaper was one bad experience. The only other, insane crying one, I also blame partially on the airlines. She and I had already had a flight delay, so we were taking off on our last flight of the day into San Antonio later at night than I'd expected. My daughter was overtired from being out of town, meeting new relatives, being spoiled by my parents who were at our destination, and napping erratically despite my best efforts to keep her on a schedule. As the plane took off and the lights were turned out for our 40-minute flight, she fell asleep, which was awesome...for 25 minutes. Then, the flight attendants abruptly turned on the lights and made an announcement, which jolted my daughter into having a night terror. This is a bout of insane crying where the baby isn't actually awake or consolable. They last 10-15 minutes and there is really nothing you can do to calm the baby down. She had had a few of these night terror episodes at home before, usually when she skipped a nap and was overtired, so I recognized that was what was happening right away. I knew nothing would console her, she just had to get through it, but I tried everything to do so anyway, all the while with her screaming, trying to climb out of her seat and up my body, and clawing at my hair. Yes, I was that parent unable to calm down their child on a plane. Yes, I got RUDE comments from people in the surrounding rows, although I got several supportive comments from parents who had been there themselves. I got a little more sympathy when a flight attendant asked me my daughter's age and I told her she was 18 months old. Because my 18-month-old was as big and TALL as many three-year-olds, so most people just thought she was being a Terrible Toddler. "She's just a baby then!" the flight attendant exclaimed, which shut some of the people up. Yes, she is indeed a baby, I said. And she's having a night terror episode because she was overtired, our flight was delayed till late, and the lights and announcement jarred her from a sound SLEEP! The capper to this episode was discovering as I finally deplaned with my finally calm baby that I had gritted my teeth so hard trying to calm her down that I had CHIPPED the top of one of my lower teeth. We met my husband at baggage claim and I promptly burst into tears. Not glam.

So there you have it. I am admittedly vain, but becoming less so all the time. I mean, I did live without nails and accepting bad hair days way beyond my pre-baby tolerance for that type of thing (ZERO TOLERANCE). This is just one of the ways my daughter is making me a better person. I'm growing. I have less time for vanity and more acceptance of imperfection. I've also become amazingly more patient, but that's a subject for another post. :)

This is what my daughter has looked like on 12 out of 14 flights.

 This is how we normally look when we travel--poop and night terrors aside.

Seven Quick Glam-O-Takes

1. I am dead tired and coming down with a cold after working two 12-hour plus days at work, thanks to Hurricane Alex. (I handle emergency response communication for my company which has operations along the Texas border.) All I have to say is "Thank you, Alex, for wrapping up quickly today so I still get my four-day weekend!"

2. Elmo is a freaking magical monster genius. My daughter and I have watched the Elmo's Potty Time video easily 10 times this week, and lo and behold, my daughter went potty on her own little potty for the first time on Tuesday night while watching the video! I was working late, so my husband texted me to tell me the news. I felt sad I missed it. 22 months old and well on her way to being potty trained...love it!

I'll do anything for Elmo!

3. I am totally looking forward to our Baby and Me swim class on Saturday. It's definitely been a journey. At the first class, my daughter clung to me and cried from the moment we touched the pool straight on to the moment we got out. We did all the activities, but she sobbed the whole time. She did, however, high-five the coach at the end of class, which, to me, was an amazing sign things were going to get better, since she does not engage with strangers AT ALL. She acts very shy around strangers, and so I was amazed she willingly high-fived our coach after what seemed like 30 minutes of terror! Week two, she cried for probably the first five minutes of class and then got engaged in doing the activities and did everything great through to the end of class. Last week, our third class, she cried for 30 SECONDS and then got right into the swing of things and loved it. When we did a new activity that involved running along a mat floating on the water and jumping to me and going underwater, she was eager to try it and wanted to do it over and over, even though it wasn't her turn yet! She didn't want to get out of the pool at the end. We had so much fun together, and I've created a fun little post-swim school routine of juice in the car (a treat for her) on the ride home, and picking up two McDonald's breakfast sandwiches for us to enjoy when we get home.

Before the crying started at the first lesson, clutching her Dora towel

4. Last weekend, I met a coworker friend and a new mutual friend of ours who's applying for a job on our team for lunch and then shopping for interview clothes, shoes, and accessories. The new friend is one of those super cute girls with an adorable figure who's kind of a tomboy and doesn't really know how to put stuff together even though she looks great in everything. The two of them had done the clothes shopping in the morning, so after we ate lunch, we helped her pick out new shoes and accessorize all her new outfits. It was like What Not to Wear: she was holding tops up on their hangers and I was hanging necklaces on them and holding watches and other accessories up by them to see what worked with each top! We had so much fun, but what struck me was how grateful the new friend was for our help. She's trying to make a fresh start in her life and was profoundly appreciative of our fashion help, which seemed like such a simple thing for us to help her with. We love her and really want her to get the job, so it was easy and fun for us to make the offer to help. I truly hope she gets the job as I just adore her and want some good things to happen for her.

5. I did not get to go to Jazzercise this past week (see #1). Next week, in addition to the hour of Jazzercise I get on Tuesday and Thursday, I'm going to begin a six-week boot camp class that starts right after Jazzercise ends each of those nights. I've taken this class in the past and it kicks my booty HARD. But I really need it because we are within three months of our Jamaica vacation and I need to lose at least 10 pounds and tighten up the abs. I don't need a six-pack...I'd be happy with two cans...just a little definition in my stomach, a little flatness like I used to have pre-baby!

6. I have to read The Caine Mutiny for my book group next week. I love to read, and I hear this book is a classic, but for some reason, I'm not super excited about snuggling up to this tome over my long holiday weekend. I'd rather read easy chick lit or a mystery I can finish in two hours. But, there's nothing really on TV right now, so I'll probably finish it. Hopefully, I will enjoy it.

7. I spent all day last Sunday redecorating my patio with new stuff (which is probably why Hurricane Alex came to town). I am hoping to have my parents over to our house on Sunday to eat outside for the July 4th holiday; however, this plan, which I've put into motion (meaning I mentioned it to my mom back when I started our patio project and she has not forgotten I invited them) means two things for me: (1) I have to cook something or order something or do something that involves preparing food, which will probably take up most of my Saturday in terms of planning because I don't really cook, and (2) I have to try to coerce my husband into buying a grill, which I've wanted us to get for a long time, because cooking on the grill is actually easier in my mind than cooking in my kitchen LOL. I don't actually expect to win the grill argument, and I think I will have fun planning the food and having my parents over, but in the end, I think I will be super tired. And I'm tired now after the crazy week I had, so it's hard to think about all of that work in advance, even though it'll be fun.

OK, enough for now...I'm starting to ramble due to sleep deprivation. Here's a picture of the new patio stuff:

Cardona 5-pc Patio Set by Martha Stewart Living from Home Depot

Pillows, outdoor rug, and cream Japanese lanterns (not shown) from Target

Red mosaic vase from some random flower arrangement I got years ago

Seven Quick Takes on a Thursday Night

Many blogs I read do a "seven quick takes" blog entry on Fridays, so I am going to give it a shot here on a Thursday night!

1. I have not abandoned this blog, I swear! It seems like this last month has flown by between Mother's Day and my birthday, which are a week apart, and crazy busy-ness at work. I may not have mentioned this before but I am paid to write for my company, so sometimes, while I have interesting ideas for my blog, and would much rather spend my day writing for my blog, the most energy I can muster when I get home at the end of the day is to note the idea, thinking I will come back to flesh out the post later. Um, yeah. I will try to write a little more regularly here in the future. I am better at posting pithy, 140-word updates to my Twitter feed, @GlamOMommy, so follow me on Twitter if you dare!

2. After almost two years and nine months, I have started regular exercise again--yay! Pre-baby, I was a regular, three to four times a week, Jazzerciser. Some people may think that's crazy, but I love Jazzercise. It feels more like dancing to the latest top music rather than "exercising," but it combines cardio, stretching, and strength training in one hour. I always feel so much better after a class, because I know I've worked every part of my body. I couldn't exercise during my pregnancy, because I had an early bleeding scare and considering all the difficulties I encountered to get pregnant, my doctor advised me to take it easy for the first trimester just so I would have peace of mind that the baby was okay. When the second trimester began, I was primed to go back to Jazzercise and do it all low impact, but then I was struck with a severe case of sciatica that left me having trouble simply WALKING for several weeks. By the time that passed, I was so huge and it was so hot in Texas, I just gave up and told myself I'd get back in class after the baby was born. Um, yeah. I went three times while on maternity leave, and it was SO hard because I'd been practically immobile for so long. Now, almost two years later, I am back in class, and doing WAY better than I expected. Apparently, chasing after and lifting a 28-pound toddler is fabulous exercise all on its own. My stamina now is almost better than I went to class all the time! I'm only going twice a week after a work. The other two days, I pick up my daughter from school and my husband goes to work out, so this way, we both get a good workout in!

3. On Saturday morning, my daughter and I start the first of 11 Saturday mornings of Mommy and Me swim class. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking I didn't want my daughter to be as old as I was (six) when she started swim lessons. I wanted her not to be afraid of the water and possibly save herself. I was thinking it would be cool for her to have some good experience in the water before we go on our vacation in September (more on that later). What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to GET UP and BE SOMEWHERE at 9:15 in the morning every Saturday this summer. What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to WEAR A SWIMSUIT every Saturday morning this summer. In front of other people. With my mommy pooch and less-than-toned thighs in full effect (thus the Jazzercising!). What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to wrangle my cute baby for essentially TWO HOURS every Saturday morning this summer for a half-hour class. What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to WAX regularly this summer! (I have an appointment tomorrow!) Hopefully, it will be a fun bonding experience for me and my little gal and she will take to the water like a cute little duckling.

4. I found out this week that yet another friend of mine who has a kid around the same age as mine is pregnant with baby #2. And I feel fine. I feel I am good with my decision to only have one child, after having moments of doubt and serious babyfever this spring. While I'm not completely ready to start selling off our baby equipment and clothes yet, I feel that I am done, and I'm okay with that. I essentially knew going into our pregnancy that it was most likely my one shot at experiencing that miracle, and so I really reveled in it and tried to enjoy it as much as possible. It's a little bittersweet knowing that was truly it, especially as my daughter now looks like a kid vs. a baby and hits huge new milestones all the time, but I love her so much and I'm so grateful to have her, it's okay. She'll have all of our love and attention, whether she wants it or not! :)

Watch out world! I'm a big girl now! (21 months old)

5. Next week, for the first time in my motherhood, I am going to be single-parenting it all week, as my husband is going out of town for work. EEK! I am taking the advice of another blogger, and have lined up dinner with the grandparentals on Monday night (it's my mom's birthday), dinner with a mom friend on Tuesday night, and may take my daughter to the grandparentals to spend the night on Thursday, so I can get in one Jazzercise class at least. :)

6. As if things weren't going to be hairy enough for me next week, what with some looming deadlines at work and the single parenting, I had to go and make things more complicated by choosing NOW to start working on potty training. SIGH. I really don't know what I was thinking. For several months now, I've talked up the potty with my daughter--she comes in with me occasionally, we've watched an Elmo potty video, and read an Abby Cadabby potty book--just so she would start getting the idea. This week, I set up her little potty in our bathroom, but did not point it out to her at all or tell her it was for her. Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for work and she was playing in our room, I told her I was going to go potty, and she immediately ran over to HER potty and sat on it! Hooray--she's ready, I thought. But the thing is, at her school, they don't reinforce potty training in the class she's in now and I wasn't sure when she was going to move up to a class that would. So my husband and I stopped in at her school today and talked to the director, and she told us they have a transition class they are putting some of the early potty training kids in, and that she can visit the class NEXT WEEK (while I'm single parenting) to see if she'll do okay there, and if so, she can move on up there and doesn't have to wait until August, which is when the rest of the kids her age will move up to the potty training classes. And, in the new class, she will get music and a stretch and grow class once a week, so I think that will be fun for her...I worry that she is bored in her current class. (I may be biased, but she can count to 10, spell her first name, sing the alphabet song and many others, recite some books from memory, and recognize all the letters, shapes, and colors, so I think she's pretty smart and a fast learner and want her to be challenged and learning new things.) But, and I do this every time she moves classes, now I'm sad to see her leave her teachers, who are so sweet! It's tough...I want her to move on and grow, but I want her to stay my baby and stay with good people that love her too, so it's a push and pull all the time. Luckily, one of the teachers in the new class was her teacher when she was first in school at four months. My daughter doesn't remember her now, of course, but I loved her and so that makes it a little better for me, although we have yet to have a bad teacher at this school. :)

7. Jamaica. Jamaica. JAMAICA!! We've booked our big vacation this year, and we're going back to Jamaica! (Another perk of not having another baby--we can still afford to travel fun places!) My husband and I went to a Sandals resort in Negril about four years ago and had an amazing time. We also took the picture that became our Christmas card picture that year on that trip.

Our 2006 Christmas Card Picture from Jamaica

I thought this was pretty glam, I have to say!

Next door to Sandals, which is couples-only, is their sister resort named Beaches, which is for families. On our last visit, we walked over to check Beaches out because we had privileges there, but came back quickly after encountering all the noisy children. Now that we have a noisy child of our own, we are excited to go to Beaches! And our daughter is excited too, because she saw the pictures of Elmo and the other Sesame Street characters that live at Beaches on their website! She was like, "Elmo!!" So we will get to have a fun beach vacation in a beautiful place and help our daughter make some fun memories with her Sesame Street friends too. So, as you can imagine, the Jamaica vacation is essentially what prompted both the return to exercising and the Mommy and Me swim class! (The potty training will help too...our daughter can participate in better kid activities at the resort if she's potty trained!) And, on a few recent shopping trips, I bought two possible outfits for myself and one for my daughter for the Christmas card picture we will take on the beach in Jamaica on this trip LOL. Now I just need to coordinate a nice outfit for my husband too. :) I'm already ahead on our 2010 Christmas card--BONUS!

If you are reading this, thanks for reading! I'll try not to be away as long next time. :)