Chocolate-Covered Chips Day

Jenny is 8 months old. And grumpy.

It's always nice to mix salty with sweet. An old friend when she was pregnant loved nothing more than Salt & Vinegar Chips tossed down with a Lime Rickey and a handful of chocolate-covered cherries for lunch (us pregnant gals eat really, really well for those growing babies). And who hasn't enjoyed some hot salty Wendy's fries washed down with an icy sweet Frosty, or a good ol' Southern-style teeth-aching sweet tea with, well, just about anything? (other than fudge. I learned yesterday that you should never, ever eat a piece of fudge and then take a sip of sweet tea. It's wrong. It makes baby Jesus cry.)

My point being, it's crappy when you have a whole bunch of bad stuff all at once, or if you have a whole bunch of good stuff at once you sometimes don't appreciate it (don't worry, this post won't dissolve into another oh-mah-gawd-be-so-thankful-for-what-you-have diatribe). This week I have had a very nicely balanced mix of the good and the bad, thankfully with an absence of ugly.

The Good: I'm a WINNER! I won this contest, which is awesome, because the bag is simply gorgeous and I need it and I will give it a good home and love it and pet it and call it George. And winning is cool, although I will be sure to tell my daughter that the real fun is in playing no matter if you win or lose, despite the fact no one really believes that. I promised my new Rubenesque Beauty BFF that I would post some pics of me and the new sidekick on our adventures, so you've got that to look forward to. Yes, I'm so bored lately I'm thinking of hilarious photo ops for a purse.

The Bad: Jenny is sick. Sick, sick, sick. I called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick. I did finally drag her 25-lb big ol' baby butt to the doctor's this morning after a really, really bad night of coughing and hacking and half-sleeping on the chaise and nose-bulbing at 2:30 am, and she's got both an ear infection AND a sinus infection, because Jelly doesn't do anything halfway. So it's time for baby's first antibiotics, yay! Another milestone for the baby book.

The Good: I am almost done doing my taxes (just have some confusing odd vouchers of some sort from the nanny payroll company I use and don't know how to enter them so that I neither get audited nor cheat myself out of something like an extra $10,000), and the magic 8-ball said 'Outcome is promising'. I should have enough bucks to fence in the backyard, which is an extremely boring way to spend a big honking chunk of money, but better than babies falling into a gully or getting attacked by snakes or the annoying neighbor's 4-wheeler. I would much prefer a mini-break somewhere hot and exotic where I can be massaged by muscled oily men and told that fat women are totally sexy, especially fat women with c-section scars and teething babies. But, alas, fence.

The Bad: Did I mention work is crazy but the alternative is way worse? The Ta is freaking out because Starbucks, an institution that will still be standing when only sentient iPhones and Jonas Brothers are left roaming the planet, is closing like 300 stores and laying off like 7000 people? That people are getting laid off and shooting their families because they don't know what else to do, or dying of cold because they can't pay their bills? I always get mocked because I am so bad at saving that I have extra taxes taken out purposefully to get a bigger refund – well, this year people who put tax money into savings accounts are probably envious. That's totally lame. And it's very sad having to go through all my files from when I lived in The Big House, despite the enormous break I'll get from the mortgage interest.

The Good: Jenny is saying 'mama'! I'm going to call it officially, although not baby-book official just yet, since she only says it when she's very sad. I am actively encouraging it by having The Nanny buzz my office phone when she does it so I can run downstairs and reward her with hugs and kisses. I got it on video which I will post later today, but since she said it because she banged her head on the dining room floor last night I lose some mom points for waiting to hear her say it instead of picking her up right away. Yes, I'm really that terrible.

I hope everyone is staying warm and toasty and gets some syrup with their bacon.