sup my peeps!

Hello to my three followers! (and to those of you are refusing to "follow" the blog but yet check it daily and then bitch at me when I don't update regularly)

It's blog relaunch time! I've been thinking about switching to wordpress for some time, and to be honest this blog ended up as just one angst ridden rant after another. It's time for a clean start, to a blog that I've put more thought into, one that I hope will be something that I can grow and expand as I grow as a blogger.

I have decided that this new blog will have features. What, features! Who does that... Ha! I do. The new blog will strive to be cheeky, as that is just how I am, and I can't change who I am just for the internet. I think that's the whole reason people started to read the blog in the first place were the cheeky posts about my husbands over use of toothpaste.

Some of the "features" I plan on including are; diaper reviews, eco-friendliness, "food even Jeff can make," among others. I hope you will join me in my new home on the internet.

Check back for the new link, or follow me on twitter. twitter.com/theresalantz

=)

Poop!

Before I had a baby I heard all of my parent friends talking about how their kids have blowouts and how they come at the worst times and are just horrid to deal with. I thought what a horrible thing to deal with but I guess it comes with having a baby. I wasn’t all the worried about blowouts, because we were planning on cloth diapers, and my baby was going to be best baby in the world and never ever have a blowout. Okay, so I didn’t really believe that 100% but there was a little bit of that in the back of my mind even if the sensible part of my brain was telling the magical-mystical part it was in la-la land again and that is it not humanly possible to not have blowouts.

Babies are simply predisposed to blowouts. They have a few things working against them. The first thing is they don’t know how to poop. No, really they don’t, some babies are better at pooping than others and some just don’t get it (like my kid). They have to bare down to get the poop out, and relax the poo shoot at the same time. When you really think about it, pooping is rather complicated and uses two opposing actions. Until I read it in a book I never thought of the process of eliminating waste as being complicated, but for a little itty-bitty person who has to learn to do everything it really is a bit of a challenge. Babies are learning the challenge of pooping, that’s why a baby might be straining and straining and getting all red faced, they aren’t constipated they just haven’t figured out how to relax the right portions of their body yet. They strain and strain and then BOOM it works and massive amounts of poo come out all. At. Once. A little paper diaper just can’t handle the strain and out it comes.

Not only do babies have to figure out how to poop but their little bodies are built for the purpose of creating blowouts. Babies, unlike normal human beings, don’t have butts; instead they have an elongated back which ends at their legs. About half way down their long back they have a groove, like an ice luge. Much to the same effect an ice luge has on alcohol does this groove have on poop. Only with an ice luge you are met with a delicious very cold shot of booze, with the poo groove you’re met with poo soaked cloths.

The poo groove, poop trench, or poop highway, as I have called them in my house, gives a direct route from the poop shoot to out of the waste containment device. No matter what you do as a parent there will be those poops (more than you ever care to count) that will jump on the poop autobahn to reach its destination at the back of your kids head. These are especially fun when they are lying down. You simply do not know the horrors which are waiting for you under that happy looking baby. (They are happy because they just left behind a massive load.)

I had to deal with one massive blow out. It was also partly our fault as parents. In attempt to get a bit more sleep at night and to teach baby that night time is for sleeping and NOT watching reruns of Top Gear, the internet said that if the diaper is wet to not change them (because changing a diaper wakes up them up – and in our case it REALLY woke them up). I was up with baby, since the diaper didn’t feel too bad I left it, an hour later they were up again. This time my husband was up with our holy terror, not realizing that I had not changed her and he was running late for work, he also did not change her. Now fast forward two more hours. The fact that she was sleeping meant that I was also sleeping. When she woke up she acted quite happy in her crib looking at her mobile. That NEVER happened, ever so I took that opportunity to do a few things for myself…like you know…go to the bathroom.

After I had taken care of myself I went back into pick her up and start our day. I slid my hands under her to pick her up. Immediately my eyes became as wide as silver dollars, or maybe larger, I don’t know I didn’t have a mirror. I pulled my hands out and blurted out “OH MY GOD!” I then stood there staring at my baby, who was happy as a “pig in shit.”I eventually took a few deep breaths and had to tell myself a few times “you’ve already touched it so just pick her up…it will be okay!” I took on last deep breath and lifted her out of her crib and on to the changing wedge.

My little three week old, 8 lb baby had successfully created such a mess that she soaked through her onsie, through her sleep and play, through the sleep sack, through the sheets and through the mattress pad. The mess was finial stopped by the plastic lining on the back of the mattress pad.

I had to give her a sponge bath on the spot, and I swear she still smelled like poop hour later when a full bath could be drawn, or maybe the smell just got stuck in my nose.

The next major blowout was not a blowout at all; we did have a number of minor blowouts but not to the extent of the previous one. The super secret of avoiding a blowout….cloth diapers, more specifically Fuzzi Bunz!

It was another one of those massive poops, if we had been using disposables the poop would have been all over the place. My husband had the honor of changing the diaper. When he came back into the room and baby had a fresh set of cloths I asked if it was a blowout. He said “no, but there was so much poop I couldn’t stop it from not touching her.”

Oh dear, that’s a massive load.

The diaper held in all the poop, the problem came when taking the diaper off. According to my husband the kid left a “poo butt print” on the changing pad. This is now how we gage the size of a poop, how large of a poo-print it makes on the changing pad.

We have had many massive poops to deal with but with the Fuzzi Bunz instead of poop jumping on the poop autobahn it’s now on a one lane country road stuck behind a combine. That poo is not going anywhere, at least not anywhere quickly.

The cloth diaper revolution.

The next person to tell us that we can’t do cloth diapers because it’s too hard and we’re not cut out for it might just get punched in the mouth.

That’s my warning.

The cloth diaper revolution.

We have decided to go cloth. This was based on research and our own personal lifestyle choices.

Once I partially announced that on Facebook, and started telling friends and family we quickly learned there is a cloth diaper revolution happening at this very moment. A very quiet revolution.

My inbox became filled with numerous friends that had recently had babies letting us know that they too were cloth users and gave us tips and tricks for what works and what does not.

I didn’t know any of these people were in to cloth, also many of the people that were doing the cloth were not the “crazy hippy type” that you would expect to be all gun-ho for cloth.

As I spoke to more people, even those that do use disposables, started to say “We researched it for ourselves but decided it didn’t fit our lifestyle, but we have friends that went cloth and love it.” There is nothing wrong with making a decision based on one’s own style of living or own needs. I was quite surprised on how many people were interested in cloth even if they didn’t go that route.

We started to share with more people about cloth diapering; most people asked if we were using a diaper service. We then got to explain that we would be doing them ourselves and then were able to explain the All-In-One (AIO) diapers. I think the AIO’s are pretty sweet and fit our lifestyle best of all. They are the most expensive of the cloth types but for us we feel that is what will fit us best.

There were those who thought it was a neat idea, there were those that said not their style but supported us in making that step, and then there were the naysayers.

The naysayers were what irked me the most. Not because they had problems with cloth diapers but how they presented their naysayingness to us. It was typically in the form of saying “You’ll do that for a week and find out that it is work and quit,” or other various statements that in general said we can’t do it because it would be too hard for us to accomplish.

Please.

For anyone that knows us, and looks at what my husband and I have accomplished in the past three years should know better than to say something like that to us.

You know, better yet, go read the previous blog post. A bit of shit doesn’t even compare to what we’ve gone through over the past seven months.

The Strangest Things....

For over a year now I've been trying to convince my dad to come over and clean my house - for money of coarse. He's unemployed and every time The Husband and I go over there for Sunday dinner my dad slips in to the conversation at least once about how he has to conserve his money now that he's unemployed (again). He works in the summers and gets laid off for the winters. Every time he states he wants more spending money that he can come and clean my house. I feel this is a fair trade since it's exactly what I had to do to get any money for anything I wanted when I was growing up.

Every time I bring up my dad cleaning my house he tells me it's too disgusting, which it's not, it's just covered in pet hair. All I really want is my house to be vacuumed an extra time a week. We vacuum it every Sunday (and if company is coming over at least an extra three more times that week) but when you have four, count 'em four, shedding hair monsters, two hours later there are hair tumble weeks rolling across the living room floor as big as a jackalope.

Today my dad was talking about what he was going to be doing on this time off, he started listing off his tasks and when he got to the last one where I typically inject "and come over and clean my house" I added "and come over and work on my bedroom remodel."

Instead of getting a "uh. no." response I got "Oh? What are you doing?"

He was genuinely interested in coming over to work on my remodel. I can get him to paint and put up trim for FREE but I can't get him to come vacuum my house for money.

The weather is caused by my bathroom

The weather this past weekend, cold generally shitty out, was in-fact caused by the rare temporary dip in Hell's temperature over the weekend creating near freezing like conditions. It was reported that there were even frost spotted on the ground in some remote areas.

What caused this anomaly, the residents of Hell were very perplexed as were the surface dwellers for the unusual weather. Upon further investigation it was reveled that the small bathroom renovation is complete. Almost. Close enough to call done in the home owners eyes at least.

Hell might have stayed chilly for at least a week as it seems the homeowners were to finally finish up a housing project, but instead went right in to yet another housing renovation. Much to the satisfaction of the residents of Hell.

There was some momentary excitement in Hell due to the dip in temperature as the Lion's fans residing in Hell thought that there was a possibility that the Lions might actually win a game.

The funny thing that happened at work.

The back Story:

For the past few years' we've been plagued with a lunch thief at work. For the most part no one shared with each other that random items of lunch would go missing and just assumed that it was just a random happenstance. Then one day I was in the break room making myself a delicious toast & jam for breakfast.

I was stirring my jam with my sweet plastic knife spreading my toast and then licking the knife. I'm not talking just a quick lick, it was a full wet-dog kiss like lick on the knife, then back in to the jar it goes. I did this a few times just minding my own business when another lady I work with started watching me. I just kept on doing what I was doing until dumb-foundedly my co-worker looked at me and said "What the HELL are you doing?" I replied "Oh, people keep eating my jams when I bring them in, I don't know who, so this is my way to sticking it to 'em." My co-worker started roaring with laughter, you know, the belly laugh, because she thought that was the best idea ever.

We then started talking about missing food items and come to find out she too was a victim of food thief. Her stories were much worse than my missing jam. She had actual items missing from her lunch sack that had her name all over it. She even left notes in her lunch snack saying "don't touch" and "If it's not yours don't eat it." and my personal favorite.... "FUCK YOU!"

This started to open the conversation and we then learned that almost everyone was experiencing food theft, some are more angry then others. I am annoyed but at the same time find it rather sad/funny that this is going on with grown adults.

That brings us to today's events....

Or, should I say yesterdays, since it started yesterday.

I brought in a PB&J wrap (with apples) I ate a little less than half the wrap and then decided to put it in the break room refrigerator. It has been noted that most food items that have been a product of thievery have been in one of the fridges.

I took my half eaten wrap, wrapped it paper towel and then put it in a plastic bag with my name in all capitals the length of the bag. Two of my other co-works were in the break room as I was putting this away. They two had been victims of food thieves. I said I'm putting this right up front to be temping, because it looks like it could be delicious burrito but it is not.

I left it there until this afternoon, I was heading to my car when I had the notion that I should return to the fridge to throw out my PB&J with apples wrap. If it has not been swiped from the fridge then it surely should be thrown out by this time. I found my sammy, in a new position in the fridge (nothing odd that happens all the time) then I pulled it out, check, there's my name, as I was crossing the room to waste basket I looked at the sammy and then realized it was shorter and the paper towel was wrapped differently.

No. fucking. way.

I opened the bag, pulled it out and unwrapped the wrap.

Yes, fucking way.

Someone did in fact take bites out of my wrap, then wrapped it back up (differently so much differently that it set me off to know there was something wrong) and put it back in the fridge.

It then took me an extra hour to leave work because naturally I had to run down to my co-worker who caught me licking my knife and tell her of the sammy with a few bites missing.

Oh, food thievery it is so on now.

Game Fuel...WTF.

Mountain Dew...er I mean MTN Dew is the go to drink for nerds and gamers alike.

Why is this...I do not know. Why do huge nerds need to have massive amounts of sugar and caffeine? Do D&D sessions really last three days where you must be alert to roll your dice and say "magic missiles" or "Lighting Bolt?"

...And really... should people who sit at their computers doing nothing but clicking a mouse need such calories? Maybe they should stick to water and celery, because they are not burning enough calories to warrant such high calorie and sweet drinks.

However, that's not the case.

Pepsi, the owners of Mountain Dew, figured out this anomaly and decided to market to gamers....yes gamers. You know the ones, the weird ones at work, that most likely still live in their parents basement and are pasty white. Most likely a ginger because they can't go outside since they fry like bacon in the sun.

They probably work in your tech department or are software engineers. Yeah, you know the ones. The one you run in to in Meijers at 1:30 a.m. buying...you guessed it MTN Dew and...binders. Don't ask what the binders are for you don't really want to know.

Pepsi, last summer had the "gamer" edition of MTN Dew. It was Halo Mountain Dew (at that point it was still "Mountain Dew and not MTN Dew). I tried it. It was alright. Actually I think it was just "Mountain Dew Code Red" with a new Halo-esq name.

This year they are targeting the World of Warcraft players...AKA WoW, or WOW or for those really lazy, wow. They have two kinds of MTN Dew, Horde flavor and Alliance Flavor.

-Woha Stop- Have to do some nerd jargon speak. There are two main "teams" in WoW. You guessed it Horde and Alliance. They fight each other. Get in to more of that later.

If you haven't guessed it, I do play WoW. I'm even part ginger (my mom's a true red-head), but alas, I do not live in my parents basement...any more. Okay, I never lived in my parents basement but that's where the computer was so it's almost the same thing.

The WoW MTN Dew, isn't just a new flavor, no...this one includes a game, where you can enter in points and win items, and your team can "win" daily. Yeah, that's the horde v. alliance teams.

I saw something when I logged in to WoW about a week ago, something on the news page about "get your battle bot now!" "Eh...whatever" I thought. It's like that stupid earn an awesome pet. (A pet in game is just some random small animal that follows you around, and does nothing other then add extra pixels on screen)

Then as I was at Meijers...picking up some Mountain Dew, the old school stuff, Throwback flavor 'cause it's teh awesome. As I'm looking up from reaching way way back on the shelf to find the glorious Throwback Mountain Dew my eyes meet...an orc.

WTF...

Now my interest is peaked. An Orc on a MTN Dew box. I read it, again went WTF. Laughed, in Meijer, people looked at me funny. I went on my merry way. I went home, logged on, checked out the news post for real this time and ended up sighing up on the MTN Dew site.

You know I soooooo signed up for the horde side. Even made the banner...