Because All I Can Say Is "Wow"

Hmmmmm. Sooooo. 9:22 PM. And I'm feeling all...craaaaaaaaaaazy.

Let's see here. I logged on for a specific purpose. But I can't really think of what that is at the current moment...thinking. Thinking...it will come to me. I swear.

In other non-related-to-why-I-logged-on-news...Emma is learning how to sleep! She's been doing pretty well for the last week. Which is good, because before that she was not doing pretty good. She was doing anti-good. Which I supposed would be bad. But it sounds bad to say my baby was doing "bad". So I just won't say it. She was doing anti-good. Yeah, that's it. But also too like I said, now she's doing good. Which I guess we could say is anti-bad. You feel me...

Sooooo she's been doing pretty good...so why is it 9:28 only and I'm feeling craaaaaaazy? (And why did it take me 6 minutes to write that first paragraph??) Because while Emma kept waking herself up crying because she was just in the habit of it...I also myself too got in the habit of waking up at those same times that she was also too waking up. I wasn't waking myself up crying. Well sometimes I was. Because she was. And that sometimes too made me cry. But not now. I just wake up, and think, She's not awake! Is she dead? Is she alive? Has she jumped out of her crib and gone in to the kitchen for peanut butter bread? (People, this is usually around 3 or 4 in the morning...so don't laugh at my mid-night-ish irrational thoughts). So even though I could be sleeping...man I am not. Sometimes. Last nightish, mostly. I got about 4 hours of non-consecutive sleep, and that was after an also sleeplessish night on Friday...and dealing with the drama and crying that accompany Emma's shots at the Dr.'s office on a Friday when she has an appointment. Which was this Friday. So. Not so much sleep for Alyssa. But Emma is getting more sleep. Was that the point of blogging? I don't think it was. I'll keep blabbing.

Ummm...Dr. man thinks Emma is really strong. Mostly because she bawled and bawled and rolled and rolled and bucked and kicked like some sort of wild bronco who needed some tender care from Robert Redford, also too known as the Horse Whisperer. Or from Chrysta, who one time called herself the Emma Whisperer. I digress. Uh. Yeah Emma is strong. And cool and funny and cute and sometimes makes me cry. Sometimes in good ways. Sometimes not so good. Which we call anti-good. I digressed again.

Emma doesn't really sleep much during the day, though. Which makes me...tired. And crazy, at only 9:32 PM. It also means I haven't much time to clean. Which is why I noticed that I no longer have dust bunnies hiding in my house. I have dust Clydesdales boarding in my house. Seriously, they're like the size of tumbleweeds. And they ominously blow across the floor when the refrigerator kicks on...I really miss cleaning. Mom was over on Wednesday (for her weekly..."Alyssa you need to go workout, but no really I just want my Emma Muffin Time" visit. And I asked her to stay extra longer, so I could...CLEAN. AND...yes AND...she folded seventy bajillion loads of laundry for me, that had taken up residence in my living room.

Oh cleaning! I have suddenly recalled why I logged on...I knew if I rambled on long enough it would come to me.

SHAMWOW!

So...I updated my fb status to explain how I'd spilled a huge glass of agua on my living room carpet and was pretty irked by it...until Mike came out with our SHAMWOW and cleaned it up:) And that made me happy. And all I could say was...WOW. If you don't know what that's from, you don't watch enough TV. Or maybe you watch too much, and it has all run together like some acid-induced time warp panorama. In any case. Sham Wow. Except. Mike (who bought these for me as a VDay present of sorts) was fooled by imitators. Really Hyper Sham Wow Infomercial Guy warned of this. And Mike fell prey. And he bought...SUPERSHAMMY! Doesn't have quite the same ring as SHAMWOW. And I feel like it's probably not as shammyish as SHAMWOW, but it did a nice job. So I applaud him for his efforts. He's a good man, he is.

Also have you ever said a word so many times that it just started to sound ridiculous, perhaps kind of like an anti-word? For example, say Shammy a bunch of times. Shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy shammy. See?

Also I got a new haircut and have realized that for a very coordinated person such as I myself am very coordinated...I can't use my left and right hand at the same time. Except when typing. And eating. And driving. And playing guitar. And...ok well let's just say that I can use my left and right hand at the same time in a very coordinatedly manner, EXCEPT when doing my hair. I got the hair chopped because I was so tired of how long it took to blow dry and straighten my hair. But now I have got to blow dry my hair with a round brush. And that is hard. And I'm not good at it. And so sometimes my hair is flippy inny on one side and flippy outtie on the other. And snaggly in the back. But other times it looks good. When I somehow get a 30 minute allottment of time to work on it. Very uncoordinatedly, I might add. You might ask yourself how I've had so many hair extremes seeing as how it only got cut on Tuesday. But it's been 4 days. And I've had 4 very different hairnesses.

Is anyone else finding my usage of fake words a little overwhelming tonight? Hmmm.

Blame it on my mother-in-law (HI JANICE!). I made the mistake of saying I liked Wild Cherry Pepsi. So she bought some for me (how nice!). And while at dinner at their house tonight, I drank two of them. After not having caffeine for a very long time. Long long time. And being very tired.

So there you have it. SHAMWOW!

Also, Emma ate with a spoon for the first time last night! It was cute and messy and pictures will be forthcoming because she's the cutiest baby I ever have seen or given birth to.

Also, speaking of the Super Excited Sham Wow Infomercial Guy...have you seen the one for Slap Chop? If it's possible, it's even better than the SHAMWOW. Honestly, a product called Slap Chop has got to be good. I feel like if I had it, I'd be like some sort of magical combination of Martha Stewart and Steven Segall. You know...making culinary delights, but also slapping the crap out of something.

*Note: Mike asked what I was blogging about, or if I was blogging about him. So I said about the Shamwow thing. Shammy shammy shammy shammy. And he said, "Yeah, I did not heed his warning about the imitators." Now you know!

*I just published this, and then realized what my title was...apparently I forgot why I was writing this blog immediately after I titled it!! Silly silly silly. Shammy shammy shammy.

Alyssa 2.0

So, here's an awesome picture of what happens to Emma when Wacky Aunt Bird babysits:) She looks good in aviators! Anyway, girlfriend got it goin' on! She's getting so big (13 lbs!) and is crazy strong. She's rolling all over the place now, and I don't think it will be too long before she starts crawling. She skooches (yeah...it's a word) all over the place already, so it's just a matter of time before she gets strong enough and coordinated enough to pick her upper and lower body up at the same time...I can only imagine how exhausted I'll be! She's also FINALLY starting to get into a groove of nighttime sleep (thanks, Anna:). That whole process has been pretty up and down, but we've adjusted her to an earlier bedtime, and it seems to be making a very big difference. Now we just need to get this girl to NAP. It's a rarity for her to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time during the day. Which means that I don't get naps at all, because it takes me like...an hour to even fall asleep. But I guess that's just the way it goes!! Anyway...yes...in all her awesomeness, Emma has developed an iron grip....which she loves to use on...my hair. And so, I introduce to you, Alyssa 2.0...my official UGLY MOM hair cut! So...is it FUG or FAB???
Striking a mom-ish pose with a(n empty) car seat.
The Back
The Side (not the huge shadow my nose casts...)
The front (aka, my face also, too)

*Side Note: In RS on Sunday, a Sister shared this startling piece of info...In a study done on people who get 6 or less hours of sleep a night, it showed that those individuals showed the coordination/awareness of a person with a blood alcohol content of .08%. Sooooo basically people who get 6 or less hours of sleep act like drunk people. Which explains A LOOOOOOOOOOT of my life these days! Hahaha...

Oh, How the Time Really Flies

Oh my, how the time flies! Emma will be four months old on Sunday, and she's hitting one milestone after another! She's such a strong little baby, and amazes me every day! Yesterday, she rolled from her back to her tummy for the first time. It was so awesome!! I almost missed it, because I was about to step in the shower...then I saw that she was hanging out on her side longer than usual...so I waited...and she kept pushing and pushing with her little toes, and then...BOOM! She did it! I got so excited and started yelling, "YEAH EMMA YOU DID IT!!" and other such exclamations. Well I guess I got a bit carried away because she got startled and started crying!!! She got over it pretty quick, though.

Emma has also discovered...HER TOES!! I think it's so cute when babies grab their toes so I've been just waiting for this! I love it...She also got a bumbo chair and she's loving it!!

I'm Calling You Out

NICOLE McQUAIN TERRY - I am calling you out! I SO wanted to win the "worst roommate story of the universe" contest, but it's clear that I have not. And what have you done?? Left us all wanting to hear more, about your other two freaky roommates! So Nicole, next time I check your blog...you better deliver! For realz.

In other news...Emma is ridiculously awesome and goodlooking. I will post a slideshow with some updated pictures soon. But for now, just know that she is a SPAZ. A major spaz. I'm sure that for you who know me, this comes as no surprise. She is her mothers daughter:) She just never stops moving. Her legs, in particular, are hilarious. I am constantly amazed at how coordinated her feet are! She grabs things with her legs/feet and can really get a grip on them! In the tubby, she will trap her rubby ducky with her feet. Diapering has become an adventure, because she will trap my right hand with her legs/feet, and then grab my left arm with her hands. And this girl has got a firm grip! And seriously, did I mention that she never stops moving? Even in her sleep? Actually....it's more like ESPECIALLY in her sleep. Mike and I peeked in on her last night, and her legs were going much like a dog who's dreaming of chasing cars. It would be far more hilarious if said movement did not cause her to wake herself up and start crying a bajillion times a night. But we're working on that. And it's a whole other, sleepless story!

So, that's all for now. Nicole. Don't think I'll forget about your roommates. Get busy typing!

Flashbacks

So, Mike and I went to dinner a couple weeks ago with a couple of friends. Somehow, we got onto the topic of college roommates. And I was unfortunate enough to have flashbacks to my freshmen year at Shippensburg U. Later, on the drive home, Mike made the comment (because he knows I'm a blogophile) now THAT would make a good blog! And so here's the story of my freshmen year...



I was totally excited to be starting school in a few weeks, and excited to meet my new roommate. Once I got her information, I gave her a call to coordinate things. When she answered the phone I was a bit taken aback, because she sounded like a 50 year old millionaire socialite. I'm not exactly sure how to explain what that sounds like, but it makes sense in my mind...Anyway. We talked things out and decided we wanted to do bunk beds, so we had more floor space in our room. She agreed to take the top bunk, since I had earlier classes than her, and she didn't want me to wake her up while climbing down in the morning. I had to move in to school about 3 weeks early for volleyball, so I had the room to myself for a while. I got all my stuff moved in, put pictures and posters on my wall, filled my drawers and my desk...the works. 3 weeks later, I walked into my room after a morning vball practice and thought my room had been robbed! My sheets and blankets had been unceremoniously ripped off my bed and piled on my desk, and my pictures had all been removed from the wall. I was standing there with my jaw on the floor, trying to figure out what was going on when I heard someone walk in behind me, and say,



"Hellooooo...I'm Jenny Petty."



I turned around, and my shock just continued to grow. I was looking at a Little Person. This in and of itself is not what shocked me. What shocked me was that she was completely dressed in black, and was wearing a bright red wig underneath a giant wide-brimmed hat. Without my even asking, she explained that the top bunk was too high for her to climb into, and so she took my stuff off the bottom bed so she could take it. A few seconds later her parents walked in and gave me some dirty looks (ok, so I'm sure I looked pretty weird in my spandex shorts, knee high socks and wife beater...) and I decided to just walk away, rather than flip out on my new roommate and her parents.



I walked down to my friend Molly's room, and just sat there, trying to take in what just happened. Little did I know, it would get worse. After my night volleyball practice I went back to my room (about 9:30) and the lights were off. Phew! Some time to myself! NOT! I turned on the lights only to see that Jenny Petty was asleep, and that her wig was neatly perched on one of those mannequin heads in front of our mirror. I also got a peak, and saw that underneath that wig she was wearing earlier, Jenny Petty was bald. Bald as a cue ball. She told me that in Middle School she decided she didn't like her hair, so she started wearing wigs. Then eventually she wore them so much, that she actually developed bald spots all over her head. So from then on, she just shaved her head and stuck with the wigs. Anyway... I only ended up living with Jenny Petty for one semester, because her eccentricities were just too much for me. Here are some things that I just couldn't handle:



*Jenny Petty decided to decorate her half of the room with pictures of aliens and dead people. No lie.



*Jenny Petty would often sing opera, very loudly, at very random times of the day.



*Jenny Petty went to bed somewhere between 8-9 pm every night. And would get really pissy if I tried to do anything requiring noise (aka, getting dressed, eating, watching tv, etc.) or having lights on (aka, reading or studying, or ya know...living?)



*Jenny Petty would take phone messages from my friends and not give them to me.

*Jenny Petty listened to Phantom of the Opera non-stop, if she wasn't singing opera herself.

*Jenny Petty let her little brother sleep in my bed, on my sheets, while I was away at a volleyball tourny. She did not tell me this until 2 days after I got back, and I wondered aloud how in the world there were crumbs in my sheets, since I did not eat in my bed. "Oh, that must have been my little brother! He's so messy!" Let's just say that I freaked out. I'm pretty particular about dirty sheets. Especially when they've been dirtied by some strange boy.

*Jenny Petty would use my face wash and deodorant when she ran out of hers. I only discovered this when I walked in one day, and saw her finish deodorizing, and put it back on MY vanity. I asked her about it, and she very casually explained how she borrowed my stuff sometimes. SICK.

*Jenny Petty had an unhealthy obsession with vampires (Anna...have I told you that I'm worried about you??).

*Jenny Petty would talk in her sleep. And say very creepy things.

*Jenny Petty very rarely left our room, unless it was for class and meals. Which means I NEVER had ANY alone time. EVER.

And so, by the end of one semester I'd had enough. I asked for a change. They set me up with the only girl in the dorm who didn't already have a roommate. And so I moved in with Taleemah.

Who was nocturnal. She never slept at night, and very often slept all day. She ordered chinese food almost every night, and almost always asked to borrow money from me to pay for it, AFTER she'd made the order. She only showered a couple times a week. She never went to class, and yet was on scholarship. She came home very drunk, very often, and was very loud and smelly. She often let her boyfriend sleep over with her. He had a deviated septum, and snored so loudly that our neighbors on both sides complained about it just as much as I did. Taleemah and her boyfriend also had sex while I was in the room sleeping. Finally fed up, one time I just got up and walked out of the room. It didn't even phase them. Sick. Taleemah would leave her chinese leftovers sit out on her desk, stinking our room up something fierce. If her boyfriend was not in our room, Taleemah was on the phone with him. They would sit there. Neither of them talking. For hours. Just listening to each other breathe while they watched TV in their respective locations. She downloaded crap onto my computer without asking, and caused it to crash. And then tried to download it again after I got it fixed. At the end of the year Taleemah took several of my books to the school store to sell them back for cash. Before I was done with finals.

And that is why I still can't decide which roommate was worse.

How do you like them apples??

A couple weeks ago my sister, Anna, was bragging on her blog about how she could finally put Sophie's hair in a pony tail. Big deal...MY baby is only 3 MONTHS old, and her hair is already long enough for me to clip bows in it!!!

How do you like them apples?!?!

Haha, I kid I kid. Emma rocks.