AMomTwoBoys

I got freaking HACKED yesterday.

Like, someone broke into my site and changed shit around.

*click to enlarge*

The best part?

*I* didn’t even notice.

Because, you know, I’ve been kind of MIA lately.

So I get a text from Andrea and she’s all “Holy shit! Did you know you’ve been hacked?  Your blog looks crazy!”

And I was like, WHAT?!

And I was talking to Heather and I said “MY BLOG HAS BEEN HACKED!  WHAT DO I DO!”

And she goes “I just told Mike, and he goes ‘I know.’”

And I was all “THANKS, MIKE.”

And she goes “He says he emailed you.”

So then I checked my email and he HAD emailed me.

Like, five hours earlier, but I hadn’t seen it because I hadn’t looked at my email.

And then I logged into Twitter and saw that MommaBird 2345 had said something to me as well.

WHOOPS.

See what I mean about being MIA?

Then I apologized to Mike because he really had let me know and I had been kind bitchy in my “THANKS MIKE”.

But I’m pretty sure I have some other reason to be mad at him anyway.

SO, I had to actually log into my site and change all my passwords and delete all the new pages the hacker created and then rename all the ones he (It was clearly a dude.  Asshole) renamed.

And that left me utterly exhausted.

But it did give me something to write about.

So, yay.

*WAPOW*

Thunderstorms are quite possibly one of my most favorite things ever.

Growing up on the east coast, I spent a good deal of my childhood looking out the window watching them approach.  I LOVED to watch the winds pick up.  The leaves on the trees would turn over and became this cool silvery green color.  We’d sit on our back porch and watch the clouds roll in, and as soon as it started to rain too hard, or the lightning got too close for comfort, we’d head inside and watch through a window.

For me, there’s nothing like the sound of a rumble of thunder.

After moving to California, it took me a LONG time to come to terms with the fact that I was lucky if I’d get even one thunderstorm a year.  ONE.

As you’ve probably heard, California is experiencing some crazy weather right now.  And by crazy, I mean it’s been raining.  A LOT.

I was beyond happy this morning to be woken up by thunder and lightning.  It was 6am, I was cozy in my bed and I was able to enjoy the rumble of a decent thunderstorm.  It was awesome.

Until it woke Zach up, who freaked the fuck out.  He clearly doesn’t share my appreciation for a good storm.

I’ll have to work on him.

Oh, HELLO!  Is anyone still out there?

SO, I know.  I’ve been MIA.

I’ve been BUSY!

So much so that I think it requires a list!

Here we go:

• I helped plan and host a baby shower.  Which, HOLY FUCKING HELL.  Stress.  But totally worth it.
• Zach has been having speech therapy twice a week.  I’m usually only home two days a week, so this has thrown a serious cramp into my sitting on the couch time.  Especially since the house has to be presentable.  And they spend the entire hour on my living room floor, so I even have to vacuum.  And pick up toys so there’s, you know,  room for them on the floor.  It’s really time consuming.  Who knew.
• We remodeled our master bath.  And we’re still happily married!
• Dylan is obsessed, and when I say obsessed, I mean OBSESSED, with Wii Super Mario Bros.  It’s the first thing he asks about in the morning, and he wants to play it until the moment he goes to bed.  I’m pretty sure he dreams about it all night long.  And because I’m such a good mother, I take the time to sit my ass on the couch and play it with him on occasion.
• I also enrolled Dylan in T-ball.  The paperwork took me six weeks to fill out because I was never at the right location with the correct paperwork.  But, he will be playing T-ball next month!  So, yay!  More shit to add to my list!

That’s all I can think of.  And I’m tired now.  So I think I’m going to take a nap.  Because the fact that the contents of my closet are stacked up in my bedroom (my husband decided to undertake a closet remodel – sigh) means nothing to me.  A nap sounds much more exciting than organizing the crap from my closet.

What have you guys been up to?

I was going to write this letter to you yesterday, but then I figured I’d wait until it was officially your gig.  Like, maybe you’re some sort of diva who won’t even talk about what’s expected of you until you’ve officially got the job.

So, welcome!  A lot is expected of you.  If you haven’t heard yet, your predecessor was kind of an  asshole.  And by kind of, I mean a complete and total asshole.

You need to make up for that, which is going to be a big job.  It’s not going to be easy, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

Please keep my family and friends healthy and happy, and heal my friends who are sick.  Bring the expected babies into the world without drama, and make sure they are healthy and chubby and cute.  Because we don’t need no ugly babies.  Or any more sadness and sorrow.  2009 gave us enough of that. For a lifetime.

You are the year Dylan will start t-ball and Kindergarten and the year Zachary will start Preschool.  You are the year I will get organized, if it kills me.  You are *hopefully* the year that DJ will see a load of stress lifted off his shoulders, and will see us moving into a new home.  Let’s make sure those last two happen, m’kay?

You are the year I will win the lottery, the year I will become a walking Ann Taylor Loft ad, the year I will start to wear jewelry on a consistent basis, and the year I will buy myself a designer handbag without feeling loads of guilt.

You are MY year.  We will be friends and I will be sad to see you go.  You, however, will probably not be sad to say goodbye to me.

I WILL OWN  YOU.

Love,

Meg

Today is my birthday.  WHOOT!!!!

I’m 31.

Which is apparently REALLY old to sweet little bitches babies like Jen and Katie who have never seen The Princess Bride or Ice Castles (which is being remade!!!!!!) and don’t even know the show Greatest American Hero. They’ve also made it their life’s purpose this past week to make me feel old.  But really, I just feel bad for them because they’ve missed out on SO MUCH GOOD STUFF.

ANYWAY, I’m going to get a pedicure and have lunch today with my girlfriend Hannah.  Without kids!  So my genius self thought it would be a great present if my husband and the boys stayed at my in-laws house last night.

Because OMFG, a night of quiet, watching shows *I* want to watch, sleeping uninterrupted, not waking up to an alarm, and then getting to watch the news in the morning?!  HEAVEN!

Except, I miss them.  And I feel guilty that I wanted a night alone for my birthday.  But they’ll be home tonight for my birthday dinner and for cake.  And Dylan promised to sing me the Birthday Song.  So I should just get over it and enjoy my day, right?

RIGHT?

Also, Mom, Dad and Court?  It’s fucking garbage day.  I’m pissed.

I was talking to some people about earlier about someone with a lazy eye.  Which made me think of Zach, because if we hadn’t been proactive in his care, he would have one.  And, I guess technically he DOES have one since whenever we take his glasses off his right eye shoots towards his nose at alarming speed.

So I went back into my photos to look for a picture of him from when we first discovered his vision problems.

And then I spent the next 30 minutes looking through all sorts of photos.

Isn’t that how it always goes?

That’s when I came across some videos of Dylan.

Remember him?  He’s my older kid.  The one I haven’t talked about much lately because he doesn’t have vision or speech issues.  And issues are easy to talk about.  They’re interesting.  You can’t be bored of them or not care, because then you’d be an asshole.

And I know you don’t want to be an asshole.  Especially at Christmas.

But talking about Dylan’s sudden and intense love for all things Wii isn’t as interesting.

And the whining, OH MY GOD the whining.  He has mastered it.

He’s also suddenly obsessed with writing and drawing.  And he loves to take baths and showers.  He could spend HOURS in there, just relaxing in the water.  I’m beginning to think he’s part fish.

He starts a majority of his sentences with “dude”.

You can see his brain working when he’s trying to come up with a plan.  It’s funny.  And frightening.

He loves to sing.  But only when he doesn’t know anyone is listening.  Or if it’s just me and dad and Zach around.

He’s shy.

He’s also starting to bust out of his shyness.  Last week our neighbor came over to talk to DJ.  As they stood in the driveway, Dylan ran outside and said “HEY!  Come inside, I want to show you something!” and then spent 10 minutes explaining the intricacies of Wii Ski to the poor guy.

I spent those 1o minutes trying to slyly hide my string bikini underwear in the laundry pile that I had just thrown on the chair.

Anyway, my point in all of this is that he’s a pretty awesome kid.

Even if I don’t talk about him as often as I should.

This is one of the videos I came across today, from June 2008.  He was just over 3 years old.

Notice* the popsicle on his mouth.  I probably used it as a bribe.  It worked.

*Ignore the dying flowers in the vase behind him.  I write for Aiming Low.  What do you expect?

Those two things really don’t have anything in common.

Except that they’re both happening in my house today!

And I only write two posts a week on average, so I sure as hell wasn’t going to write two posts in one day.

I mean, really.

Also, I’m having fun using Shakespeare quotes for my post titles.  My High School English Teacher would be so fucking proud of me.

Anyway, I was at Target the other day, aimlessly wandering the toy aisles over and over again, when I figured going down the girl toy aisle wasn’t that bad of an idea.

There are a couple of girls on my list.  Plus, Dolls!  And pink!

It was like being in a foreign country.  But without the umbrella drinks and hairy men walking around in speedo thongs.

So I happened to look up and see a rack, with no prices, of Zhu Zhu Pets. I’ve heard of them, but honestly, it pretty much went in one ear and out the other.  So I took one and looked it over.

A fake hamster?!  That I don’t have to keep clean, feed, or, you know, keep ALIVE?  SCORE!  Dylan would be all over that!

I took it to the little price scanner thingy to see how much it was going to set me back.  When $7.99 showed up on the screen, I couldn’t get it in my cart fast enough.

So then I came home and I put Zach down for a nap and I started wrapping presents.  And when I pulled the Zhu Zhu pet out of the bag I decided to send a tweet about it:

And within in seconds I had 4,395,502 replies there were all pretty  much the same:

I suddenly realized I’d made the purchase of year and I didn’t even know it!

So I got Zach back in the car, headed BACK to Target and snatched the remaining Zhu Zhu Pets out of a cute little girl’s hands.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

What I’m trying to say is that I have a Zhu Zhu pet to give away to one lucky person!

His (her?) name is Chunk and he/she is all white.

It’s still in the package.  Don’t let the photo fool you.

Just leave a comment telling me who the lucky recipient will be.  And don’t worry, I totally won’t judge you if you want it for yourself.

You can earn extra entries by tweeting about the giveaway.  Just be sure to leave a separate comment with a direct link to each individual tweet.  Also, you can get another extra entry by following me on twitter, again with the individual comment.  AND, if you can leave a comment telling me what my last post on Aiming Low was about….you guessed it, another entry!

That’s, like, 436 possible ways to enter!

Open to US Residents only. Contest closes at 4pm Pacific time tomorrow (Saturday, December 19th).  At which point I will choose the winner via random number drawing from all eligible comments.  I will email the winner and as soon as I get your shipping address, I’ll send it out via Priority Mail.  I can’t guarantee you’ll have it by the 25th, but if you win and get me your address ASAP, it’s very likely!

Good luck!

*P.S. Dylan has a cold/cough combo.  He’s not sick-sick, but I’d be really annoyed it someone else sent their kid to school if they were sick like he is.   Because…snot.  So…that’s that.

**UPDATED!  The winner was comment #64!  Congratulations Erica!

Which means Zach is witty as all get out.

We got the report from his speech evaluation yesterday.

I was fully prepared to be told that yes, he is speech delayed.  BUT, not enough to qualify for services.

So, when she started talking about making appointments and scheduling visits, I was a bit taken aback.

I think my exact words were “UM.  Does this mean he qualifies for services?”

To which she looked at me like I had two heads and said “YES.”

But I know she added a silent “you fucking moron.”

APPARENTLY, even though he’s well advanced in EVERY OTHER ASPECT, he’s a little behind in expressive speech.

And by a little, I mean, HOLYMOTHEROFGAHD my 28 (almost) month old was placed in the 9-12 month range.

GAH.  I mean, I KNEW he was behind, but dude.  He didn’t even complete all the skills that a 9-12 month old would?!  CHRIST.

To say I was surprised would be putting it mildly.  I was SHOCKED.

But not in a bad way, though.

I’m not worried about him.

I don’t think there’s anything WRONG with him.

He did so well in all the other areas I wan to have it tattoo’d to his forehead.

Classy, no?

So, what does this all mean?

It means that we get to have two days a week of speech therapy beginning in January.

We set a few goals, and by the time he turns three we want Zach to have AT LEAST 100 words.  Which sounds like a lot to me, but the therapist said a 3 year old should have many more than that.

We’re also going to reevaluate him in April, and if he’s progressing as well as I suspect he will (hello, he’s brilliant, remember?), we will cut back to one day a week.

I’m fairly confident that I will kick myself for this in a few short months.

He’ll be talking my ear off about quantum physics and explaining why he loves Dora the Explorer and hates Thomas the Tank Engine.

Actually,  I’d kind of like an explanation for that.

Happy Holidays, to my internet friends and family!

I can’t even begin to tell you how important you all are to me.

Thank you for being a part of my life.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, prosperous and fun-filled 2010!

~~~~~

If you’ve shared your holiday card with the rest of us, please link to it below!

And trains are the things little boys dreams are made of.

We started the day by making a train out of cardboard boxes.

We ended the day racing a train on the freeway.

Unfortunately, Dylan was asleep.  But Zach did his best to wake him up by screaming “CHOO CHOO!”.

It was a good day.

*WAPOW!*

Don’t forget the Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange is tomorrow!