Pirates Aaaarghhh… with boogie shoes

A few days after Halloween I got the rare treat of grocery shopping with only one child. Em fell asleep at grand mommy’s house; At-man and I were on our own. At the end on an uneventful trip we took our place on line. The grocery line is really the only place I get to check in with all the celebrity shenanigans so now you know where my true focus was…”it must be so hard for poor Angelina these days.” Just as I was convinced that Nick and Jessica didn’t stand a chance (and apparently was right on that one) one of our friendly cashiers approached me. She explained that she was told to either give away the left over holiday merchandise or toss it. Would At-man like to pick a free toy out of the bin?

At-man stood on tippy-toes and pulled out the only toy left. I knew that any toy that survived both the 50% and then 75% mark down wouldn’t be pretty, but holy smokes! This puts all the drug store, five dollar, singing frog families to shame. This toy is truly horrifying. It is a talking skeleton dressed in pirate finery. “Can hold his head in his hands!” the box boasts. At-man kept making faces at it and putting it back in the bin, but that cashier was determined that he was going home with us.

Upon further investigation we discovered that not only was “Skully” a sea dog fashionista, he was also a major fan of K.C. and the Sunshine Band. Not only did he “do a little dance”, not only did he “make a little love”, he got down tonight baby! If all that wasn’t enough, his jaw bone moved around to give the impression he was singing as his left eyeball actually popped in and out of his head.

Now I ask you, could there be any better choice of song for a child’s Halloween toy than “Get down tonight”? Brilliant! Of course my kids want to do a little dance and make a little love. How did they know?

Now, while At-man tried to ditch the toy, Em adores it. As soon as Skully starts singing Em begins bouncing up and down on his chubby little baby legs. He walks back into the kitchen again and again to press the button. Man does that kid like to get down.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that this house has no shortage of cuddly, historically loved childhood characters that sing, bounce, shout and go potty. Although At-man loved these in his babyhood, Em doesn’t give any of them a second glance. Apparently Skully has that certain something, after all, he’ got boogie fever. How could you not love that?

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, Skully is taking up residence in the attic. We are all going through a little disco withdrawal but don’t worry. I’m bringing in back up. While his dancing leaves something to be desired, at least his lyrics are slightly more age appropriate for a 1 year old.

New buddy

Turcupcakens

At-man wanted turkey cupcakes for Thanksgiving. As yummy as that sounded, I think with a little compromise, they turned out rather cute if I do say so myself.

Hipster D and I hit the town Sat. night for the first time in longer than I care to think about. We were invited to one of our old favorite haunts, the lure of a cool band “from New York” and open bar tab was too good to pass up. I love how other blogs link to the places involved, I would do it myself but this place has no site to speak of. It is truly the type of hang-out exclusive to tattoo artists and record store clerks. When a place is “hipster” through and through, a cool website is unnecessary. This is the type of spot where they have their niche, and their niche is not online. When you have the monumental decision each month of either paying for internet service or PBR and hard to find Piggly Wiggly t-shirts, well, let’s just say the winner with this crowd goes without saying.

The usual suspects were still there, god help em’. Isn’t it funny how the people who looked 35 when they were 21 do finally manage to grow into their awkwardness? They don’t necessarily become attractive or even normal looking, just much less bizarre. We were sitting up at the bar, surveying the scene when we ran into the guy who runs the local “Tattoo Empire”. Since I do not name names, let’s just call him “Rockabilly Frankenstein”. Anyway, I got into a chat with Rockabilly Frankenstein, who just so happened to become a dad around the same time we had our first. As fate would have it, he happens to be the extremely proud papa of one little handful of a girl. Not too long ago this conversation would have had a decidedly different flavor, but tonight it was all about…Disney Princesses! What?! I finally scored a sitter, drove all the way downtown and the best conversation I had all night was a back and forth discussing the merits of Spiderman v/s Cinderella. What the hell has happened to us?!

The funny thing is, well…who gives a shit. At-man is a better conversationalist than anyone there. Even better, Em will breathe on your neck so sweetly without a single drop of Jager, and that rocks harder that any band “from New York” ever has.

When the idea of starting this blog first came about, Em actually napped on occasion. Since he only recently celebrated his very first birthday, like most 1 year olds, his sleep schedule is all out of whack. A fact that is underscored by the fact that he is attending mom’s morning out at At-man’s school. He is there from 9-noon, 2 days a week. On school days my little man hits the car-seat to go home and that’s all she wrote.

At-man has the option of leaving at noon, or staying an extra hour and eating lunch with his friends. I know I am crazy and probably reading too much into the social lives of three year olds, but the kids who do not stay for lunch seem to have less of a bond than the cooler “lunch bunch”. At-man’s best friend is a lunch bunch dude and even though it would probably make my life ten thousand times easier I just don’t have the heart to make him give up his last hour before he returns home to his life as “the one who can somewhat handle himself”.

All the way to Thanksgiving and Em and I are still in the experimental phase as to what is the best way to proceed. If I take him straight home and put him in his crib I have to wake him up to get back in the car 45 minutes later. Today I tried running errands I can accomplish from the car in the hopes that he would remain asleep until we return home with big brother. We cruised through the bank drive through, hit the mail box, filled up the gas tank, things were really moving along. Then the human tornado hits the car fresh from a rainy, no playground day at school. Queue Em - who lazily blinks his eyes, notices big bro hopping around the car and immediately decides this looks too fun to miss out on. Back on the ranch we now have a baby who is beside himself after realizing that the “waking up thing” was not exactly the best decision he could have made at the time. The nice thing about the second go-around in parenting is that you know all of the things that are driving you crazy at any given point are subject to change at a moments notice. So, although I am somewhat disappointed at the amount of time I have had to invest so far, I know that this too shall pass. Please stay tuned…

Em does not eat. He somehow mysteriously manages to remain off the charts in height and weight, yet there are entire days that I cannot record a single food item actually being ingested. I have tried to hold off on his milk so he would be more hungry, next came giving him the milk early so he wasn’t “too hungry” to eat. At his one year check up I had casually mentioned to his doctor his preference for spitting out any solid food that was lucky enough to actually make it past his lips and she actually recommended an eating therapist. Now poor little Em and I have to spend our rare “just the two of us” time not eating at the therapists office. Of course as in any facet of parenting we have irony, the child who will eat nothing I serve him, will immediately put any item he finds on the floor into his mouth. If there was any possibility that I could get my linoleum clean enough for him to eat off of without the simple idea of it making me sick, this situation would very likely be a non-issue.

The truly bizarre thing is that it bothers me as much as it does. At-man actually threw up at almost every meal from 6 months to 1 1/2 years. No, I am not kidding. Yes, it is unbelievable we actually had another child. Eventually his gag reflex weakened and he grew into one of those kids who 90% of the time jogs by the dinner table, stops to sniff his plate and then proudly declares he is “full”. The other 10% it’s keep any valuables out of the way, because if he sees it he is going to eat it.

Every time I see a toddler happily wolfing down a banana, or taking yet another bite of their very own double cheese burger I have to wonder what I could possibly be doing wrong. Having come of age in the 1980’s, a time when all women had to weigh 110 lbs and the only acceptable form of exercise involved terry cloth headbands and Jane Fonda, god knows I have eating issues. Had I a teenage daughter, I would be the first person to take responsibility for her twisted views on food. With two boys under four years old, well, I just never expected it.

Anyway, I guess this is all on my mind because we are having some rough afternoons due, I would guess, to excessive hunger. People who tell you to let kids be, “When they are hungry, they will eat…” never met Em. He won’t eat, and in response, he only gets madder because he is so hungry. Right now it feels like a pretty endless cycle but I know one day when puberty sets in he will most probably be eating everything in the house and oh my how we will laugh.

Starting a blog is a huge undertaking. I guess it would be best to start off with a small explination of why I felt like blogging was something I would like to do. As I see it, this blog is first and most importantly for my boys. Childhood memories fade all too fast, and the past 4 years have been too much fun to forget. I started keeping a hand written journal when I became pregnant with At. I was able to keep it up until he turned 2 and then tried to take it back up when we found out about Em but once you have a second baby in the house you need every spare second for catching up on sleep.

Since Hipster Mom is brand spankin new I am sure it will evolve as I go along. If you happen to stumble upon me here in the early days please feel free to give me your input. Your comments may piss me off but I am too busy to let it get under my skin for more than a minute or two.

I have always enjoyed writing and hopefully this blog will give me the oppourtuinity to improve my skillz. Blogging also seems to be a cheap and easy way of avoiding the therapists couch. Who wants to pay for therapy when there are so many great shoes out this season?

Speaking of shoes, I cannot even thing about how many cool sites I have found on the web just through scanning the blogs I have kept up with. Another reason for starting this project was to make an attempt to get the word out about cool sites other moms (who refuse to dress their kids like they will be attending an infant only event at the country club) might be interested in. It took me hours to find a site that sold tiny Ramones t-shirts when my first son was born, all you have to do is click.Luckylildevil.com

It’s time to return to the land of mom. Until later…

Originally I had planned to devote at least 15 minutes prior to 5pm to create the first “official post” on my new blog, but Em decided it was such an awfully beautiful day it really would be a shame to waste any time on napping. Fifteen minutes are more than I can spare (too hard to concentrate when you keep hearing “Mom?”, “Mom?”, “Mom?”), but since I know you have to jump in at some point I guess this is as good a start as any. If Microsoft started in Bill Gates garage I guess it’s ok for Hipstermom to start off with a couple of random sentences. I will try to get the pearls of wisdom flowing from my keyboard a bit more later when no one is screaming in my ear.