Wanda Says…On My Son’s Opinion of Green Poop.

March 22, 2015March 22, 2015 / Wanda / 5 Comments

Parenting children is so glamorous. If I’m not pulling teeth, wiping bums, or determining the source of crusty residue left on various surfaces, then I’m a scientist/medical doctor in training attempting to help my children decipher their bodily functions and the source of any problems that arise.

I apologize for the gross topic of this post, but I had this conversation with my four year old son this morning, and for a lack of anything more interesting to write about, decided to share the poop story love with all of you.

You’re welcome, world.

This morning I heard Bryce muttering to himself in the bathroom.

Bryce: Why is my poop green? What makes green poop?

Me: Is something wrong? Do you need help?

Bryce: Yes. My poop is green mommy.

(I joined him in the bathroom, and yes, his poop was a shamrock green color. WTH?)

Bryce: Why?

Me: I don’t know, buddy. Maybe it has something to do with the blue icing you ate last night on the cake. But it will be ok. Poop changes color sometimes based on what you eat.

Bryce: So the blue icing and the chocolate cake made green poop?!

Me: I’m not sure.

Bryce: What does red and green make?

Me: Probably a brownish-gray color. Why?

Bryce: Well, then to turn my poop brown again, I need to eat some Red Velvet cake! Can you get some of that for me, because we need to fix this!

LOL! Little boy problems are so fun. I heard him talking to himself a while later saying, “I never should have eaten that chocolate cake!” 😉

Update: About two hours after I posted this, my family and I were shopping at the local mall, picking up some clothes for the kids. In the middle of the girls department at Macy’s, I look over and Bryce has his pants down around his ankles, his underwear around his knees, bare-ass, inspecting the inside of his underwear! He was so worried about the green poop, he said, with big fat tears in his eyes and a sad look on his face, “I had to make sure the green poop didn’t get into my underwear.” We left the store and got him a Red Velvet cupcake just to ease his worries. 🙂

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

March 17, 2015March 17, 2015 / Wanda / Leave a comment

Wanda Says…I can do anything for a count of ten!

March 15, 2015March 15, 2015 / Wanda / 14 Comments

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The good news is that in my attempt to increase my levels of physical fitness, I walked over 12,000 steps yesterday. The bad news is that I’m pretty sure my knees and ankles are now plotting to murder me in my sleep.

I’ve been plugging along with my diet and exercise routine with somewhat slow but still fairly decent results. The first week with my trainer I gained two pounds which she assured me was normal. Then I lost the two pounds and gained them back when my bestie came into town for the weekend. Apparently drinking gallons of wine and eating out two meals a day is not exactly healthy or good for my diet. Whatever.

Even though I’m not shedding pounds quickly, and I accept the fact that this is my fault and directly related to my weekend activities, I am getting stronger. I can feel it in my arms and legs. And I notice the difference in what I can do in my workouts.

My trainer, Carrie, is amazing. I actually look forward to working out with her. Can you believe that? I look forward to an hour of physical punishment twice a week. I describe it as punishment because after the workout I feel like I need to crawl into bed and sleep for the rest of the day. The other day I came home from the gym and went into my son’s room to play with him. I laid down on his bed and passed out for over an hour. I slept in his bed in the middle of the day while he played around me. That one hour with Carrie is so exhausting, and my whole body has been continuously sore for weeks. My armpits are even sore. I actually feel like someone punched me in the armpit, repeatedly. Who knew that was possible? But during the workout I don’t feel exhausted. I just feel strong and curious to see what I can do. I never watch the clock, either. When I workout with her I never feel like I have to check and see how much time is left before I can be done.

Prior to our workout, I do a quick warm up on the treadmill in a small, woman’s only section of the gym. This room has mirrors on every wall, so while I’m on the treadmill I can see my body from every angle. This has proved to be very motivating for me. By the time I’m done with that warm up and join Carrie in the larger section of the gym I am mentally prepared for her to put me through my paces. Seeing my body from every angle while I walk on that treadmill reinforces why I’m there. I told Carrie about this and then said to her, “I don’t care what you ask me to do as long as you help me get rid of my second ass. I only need one, and this bitch has been free-loading on my backside for long enough.”

She also pushes me in ways that I would never think to push myself. I’ve learned to not even look at the amount of weight she hands me. My first workout I thought she was crazy when she handed me ten pound dumbbells. Now, I just trust that she knows what she’s doing and she wouldn’t give it to me if she thought I couldn’t really do it. It is hard. I have to fight through the exercises and I’ve learned what people mean when they talk about the mental aspect of pushing through physical barriers. I mentally chant to myself during difficult exercises, which is almost every exercise she asks me to do. I quietly tell myself, over and over, “I can do anything for a count of ten.” Of course, it’s actually three sets of ten, but in that moment I just need to get through ten. I focus on that and it helps me to wrap my head around what I am pushing my body to do.

My first week I could only plank for twenty seconds. My whole body vibrates with the effort necessary to hold the position. At week four I can do fifty seconds. I hate that fifty seconds. Carries says, “Close your eyes, breathe and go to your happy place.” Instead, I close my eyes and repeatedly think, “I can do anything for fifty seconds.”

And I can.

Wanda Says…Silliness, Shenanigans, and Good Friends.

March 11, 2015 / Wanda / 14 Comments

This past weekend one of my lifelong friends and her daughter, who was celebrating her 21st birthday, came to visit me here in California.

After three days of preparing my house for the festivities and four days of entertaining, along with pee-your-pants hilarity, I am exhausted.

My friend T (names will be shortened to the first initial of first names) and her daughter K are very special to me. T is one of those friends that it doesn’t matter how much time has passed since we last talked or saw each other. Every conversation or visit takes place like its been mere moments since the last. When I’m with her I feel nineteen again. And sadly, we often act like we’re teenagers when life allows us to have these brief but special visits.

T lives in my home state of Michigan so we only get to see each other once a year, if we’re lucky. We met when I was fifteen and she was eighteen. I knew the very first time I met her that we would be friends forever. We’ve been partners in crime for 25 years, and every time we’re together we seem to have these unforgettable moments that take my breath away. Like, literally, I’m laughing so hard I can’t breath. And there are tears running down my face. And I may or may not pee my pants. That may not seem like a big deal, but when you’re laughing that hard so often, it begins to hurt. Joy can be extremely painful. And embarrassing.

I love you, T!

This past weekend was filled with laughter, silliness and varied shenanigans. Here are my top five favorite moments from the weekend…

1. In our attempt to find one drink K would like on her 21st birthday, T and I got shit-faced while drinking all her cocktail rejects. We ordered her ten different drinks trying to find one she liked. We failed. K remained sober while T and I partied like it was 1999.

2. T smuggled a Moscow Mule out of the bar in her purse. Her excuse? “That drink cost $12 and I wasn’t about to leave it behind.” She pulled it out of her purse when we got home and gave it to my babysitter, who apparently loves Moscow Mules along with delivery bar service. (Yes, my babysitter is over 21 and is a part-time bar tender.)

3. On one of our cab rides, our cab driver ran every stop sign and attempted to channel his inner Mario Andretti with us in the car. I think he was showing off for K, who is an extremely gorgeous young woman. While we were clutching the arm rests and hanging on for dear life, my phone rings and it’s the dispatcher telling us that the cab we ordered has arrived at my house. I tell the dispatcher that we are in the cab, but obviously this isn’t the cab that was supposed to pick us up. Who is this cab driver? Holy shit, are we being kidnapped? I attempted to communicate my distress over the cabbie’s driving skills over the phone, but the dispatcher seemed to feel it was just a mix-up. I wanted to use a safe word so the dispatcher would know we might be in trouble, but telling the dispatcher our cabbie was fucking crazy seemed like a bad idea since I didn’t know if he was a kidnapper or not. The dispatcher then told me to have a good night and disconnected the call. Thankfully, the cabbie dropped us at our destination before we all died in a fiery crash, or we ended up at the bottom of a well with cabbie man using our skin as a cape. I’m only listing this as a top five moment because now that it’s over, and I’m not dead, kidnapped or skinned alive, I can laugh about it.

4. My birthday gift to K was tickets to the Comedy & Magic Club to see Jay Leno. It was a blast and Jay was awesome! We had good seats, great drinks, and it was an awesome night.

5. We treated ourselves to massages at the spa, and it was one of my favorite activities of the whole weekend. Since I started working out with my trainer three weeks ago, my body has been in a continuous state of soreness and pain. Everything hurts, but in a good way. I can feel myself getting stronger. But I have knots in my muscles everywhere and no amount of stretching can work them all out. So I paid to have a massage therapist, aka torture artist, work them out for me, and while it was 60% pain versus 40% relaxation and pleasure, I needed it desperately.

Overall the weekend was amazing. We laughed, we danced, we had girl talk and reminisced about days past and our epically bad behavior. We laughed hard, played at the beach, ate amazing food at amazing LA restaurants and giggled as K stalked and fan-girled over the LA Clippers basketball players working out at the gym.

I’ve missed these girls, and I cried when they left. They don’t make women in California like they do in the Midwest. We are a breed unto ourselves and having them here made everything more beautiful and more fun. 🙂

Wanda Says…Ummmm, I did not order this.

March 1, 2015 / Wanda / 15 Comments

Hello, world.

I’ve been out of the social media/WordPress mix for a little while for a variety of reasons. I’ve been volunteering to help with a fundraiser at my daughter’s school and between that and the time I’ve been spending recovering from my sessions with my personal trainer, I haven’t had the time or energy to think about anything interesting to share with all of you.

Until today….

Yesterday a package arrived for my daughter. That’s not necessarily surprising as she sometimes gets small packages from grandparents without warning. I asked my husband if he ordered anything for her, or if his mother did, and he said he wasn’t expecting anything and hadn’t ordered anything himself. What was interesting was that the package came from Walmart, and we rarely shop at Walmart.

So I opened it to see what was in the box and if there was a gift message on the packing slip.

Keep in mind this box came addressed to my ten year old daughter.

Here is a picture of the packing slip…

WTF?

What a random assortment of items. Pop tarts, K-Cups, toothpaste and feminine hygiene products. Really?

I realize this must be a shipping mistake. How Bryn’s name and address ended up in the Walmart database is curious because we never order anything from them. I went to Walmart’s website and tried to track the order number so I could see who purchased the items, but because my email address didn’t match the order number the website wouldn’t let me in to see anything, which is a good thing as it protects the information of the person who actually did order these products.

Bryn thought it was funny and wanted to examine the contents of the box, and as she was looking through the box she said, “What are Pop Tarts?”

Did you hear that? Do you know what that means?

In this moment, right now, I feel like a good parent. I feel like I might have done something right.

Who knew in this moment of random, shipping mistake, box full of assorted grocery store items, that I would find validation of my parenting choices? My chest swelled a little and I smiled.

My daughter is ten years old and she doesn’t know about Pop Tarts! As crazy ass Charlie Sheen would say, “I am WINNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Image result for images of charlie sheen

I’m a winner too, Charlie!

I grew up on the most processed, non-food imaginable. Nutrition in the 80’s and 90’s at my house was all about Hamburger Helper, Tuna Helper, Pop Tarts, Cheez-Whiz, Bagel Dogs, Twinkies, and sugar cereals. The most fruit we ever had in our house was when my mother was making a batch of her famous Sangria.

Now that I’m the parent, I don’t feed my kids that stuff. My kids have never tasted Cheez-Whiz and they have never had pasta out of a can. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m a super-freak about everything they eat. After all, pizza is their favorite food and they act like the apocalypse is looming if we run out of Eggo pancakes. But my kids eat real food, and I try to buy organic, whole food as much as possible.

But that is not the point of this post. The point, my dear friends, is that Walmart has inadvertently made me feel like I might be able, at some point, to claim that ever-elusive Mother of Year award. I am one step closer thanks to their misprinted shipping labels!

Thank you Walmart! Thank you, and please understand that I never shop in your store due to the lack of enforceable dress code and tendency to run into ‘The People Of Walmart.’ 😉