we’ve moved!

what would a new year be without a shiny new domain of my very own? yes, my friends, we are moving. i know, we’ve moved once before. BUT this is the ultimate. i’m joining the ranks of the dot coms! as in, harpershappenings.com. it sounds nice, no?

while this is probably the most exciting thing to happen to me in a while (besides acquiring a shiny new Blackberry for christmas on which to email, facebook and tweet), there are going to be a few things you must do to make sure you keep getting the HH goodness coming your way.

• if you have us in your bookmarks, you’ll need to go to http://www.harpershappenings.com and re-bookmark us. delete the old one ’cause you won’t need to come here anymore.
• if you have us in your Blogger “blogs i’m reading” list, you’ll need to replace this url with the new one.
• if you have us on YOUR websites blogroll (p.s. thank you!), you’ll need to update the link.
• if you’re my grandma, you’ll need to have me come over and do this for you.

so. a recap. our NEW address is WWW.HARPERSHAPPENINGS.COM

feel free to email me if you have any questions. i’m super duper excited you guys. i hope i don’t lose any readers, but i think (no, i know) this is going to be way better! for everyone!

while this blog will still be here, it won’t be updated in any way. so please head over to our new home and hang out.

hugs and kisses,

mandy

the one in which i say thank you.

o here it is the last day of 2009. since my photo post was a disaster and i can’t help but get a little nostalgic on NYE, i thought i’d at least pop in to say thanks to the people who for some ungodly reason enjoy reading my rambling mess – you!

i started this blog in 2009 and my readers consisted of people i actually knew in real life. now i have readers whom i’ve never met in real life, yet consider friends. the life of a stay at home mama can be lonely at times (not in the physical way ’cause let’s face it, having a little person strapped to you all day or biting your ankles isn’t lonely, per se) and i’m not sure i would have survived my first full year of it without the kindness of strangers willing to listen to me here. getting comments saying at least one person can relate to me is amazing. having a place where my family far away can see Harper grow is amazing. having a place where i can speak like an adult? also amazing.

it’s kinda baffling to me that the little thing i started has turned into something much bigger. people have told me the craziest things. like that my posts make their day. what? that’s incredible. i never could have imagined. so thanks guys. i hope that i can continue to make someones day (and not crumble under the pressure) in the coming year.

when H was born i was sad to find there were little to no mom groups in the area (and omg, remember when i got denied from one?). now i have the biggest mom group ever and i love it! granted, we can’t get together, which really blows, but we lean on  each other, share stories and countless complaints and joys of motherhood. a special shoutout to my family, and scot’s family who read, for still liking me even though i sometimes say bad words and share a little too much information about birthing a child.

2010 is going to be a good year, i know it. i have resolutions that are not out of reach and that i look forward to um, resoluting. resolving? anyways, i’m stoked on ’10. hopefully some changes for the better will be coming for my little blog and mayhaps it will no longer look like a 6 year old maintains it? hopefully.

so anywho, thanks guys! thanks to my new friends, old friends, people who comment on the daily and even those who don’t but still read daily (maybe in 2010 your resolution should be to say hi? just saying). and also, props on the fact that i only had one negative comment all year and it was the math patrol coming to give me a citation.

Scot, myself, and of course the star of this whole show, Harper, wish you and yours nothing but the best in 2010! (except you, math police).

quick, someone slap me.

thought mayhaps a 2009 photo post was in order. i thought i could pick some cuties from the year, put them in order and share them with you, the fine interwebs. but alas, i have no patience, i am still tired from christmas, and OH YEAH, i tried and failed because i cried going through photos from 2009.

did you know i started the year with a 2 month old? a two month old. like, at this time last year it had only been 8 weeks since i graced the world with Harper’s presence (you’re welcome!). i was still sporting maternity jeans, gratuitously using nipple cream and probably still shaking cans of dermoplast (my bsff – best spray friend forever). looking through the photos made me want to do the unthinkable : immediately get pregnant again. like yesterday. like, i need to cuddle a tiny freshly baked wrinkly-leg-skinned newborn NOW. i give to you the following photographic evidence as the culprits for said fever breaking out:

the 6 hours after birth photo

i mean, look you guys! i did this. i can do it again, right? i made that little human and then pushed her out. nevermind my meatslab arms and 6 chins, they went away eventually and they will again! pay no mind that my lady parts were throbbing, that nursing bra was rubbing uncomfortably against my bleeding nipples and i was only sleeping because of ambien, I SHOULD HAVE ANOTHER BABY because look at her!

the daddy and baby napping photo

ok seriously? come on. if i squeed any louder i might squee right off a bridge. tiny sleeping babeh + handsome man you married + both sleeping peacefully = makes me want to cry. sidenote: these 2 photos might have been the only actual 2 times we slept.

the stripey dipey baby bum/tiny curled toes photo

oh hail no. you can’t expect anyone with ovaries to look at this and not want to immediately get impregnated. what are you doing baby feet? oh, just being tiny and fat and curly? and hey you, baby bum – who do you think you are? oh, just a stripey cushy little tushy? ok, carry on.

stupid idiot not-cute-at-all baby hat photo

warning : do not look directly at this photo. when i did, i got the sudden urge to eat celery, buy a huge bottle of cocoabutter and map out all baskin robins locations within a 10 mile radius in order to be prepared for pregnancy numero dos. the combination of weird monster-animal shirt, sweater hat with ears and braided flaps, and doe-eyed nugget will have you running to rite-aid to pick up some ovulation kits at 1am. danger danger danger.

operation 2009 photo post = fail. NOT going to happen. not only is my blog not big enough for all the adorable photos i’d need to use to celebrate the year that was, i just don’t think it would be appropriate for my husband to wake up to me making a necklace of Harper’s baby booties or poking holes in things i shouldn’t be. just not a good end to the year, you know?

the tale of 3 christmases.

holy exhausted mama batman. what a whirlwind holiday week it has been. i’m not sure when my house might look back to normal, but for today, i don’t really care. watching Harper scream and clap at her new busy ball popper is all i really want to do today. i mean, now that the wrapping and tissue paper is out of the way, she is actually paying attention to her new toys.

we had our first christmas last sunday with Scot’s side of the family. it was fun and happy and made me so grateful to have married into such a wonderful family. i love my in-laws, and i know many people who can’t say the same so i consider myself very lucky! Harper had a fab time running around with her 3 cousins, Sage, Lincoln and Truman.christmas day was one of my favorite memories of the year for sure. Harper was so happy to be woken up by mommy & daddy, and Scot’s omgilovechristmas attitude just makes me so happy. it’s like having 2 kids, only one of them knows how to potty in the toilet and fix things when i break them.

we had cinnamon rolls, stockings and gifts, GG came over to help us celebrate and i didn’t once get out of my festive jammies. totally acceptable for the occasion though, so no apologizing here (yes, a bra was at the party). dinner was amazing and we rotated a christmas story, the santa clause and elf all day on the tube. Scot loved the gift i got him (a Garmin) and i might marry the gift he got me (a Blackberry).

yesterday we had our 3rd christmas with my entire family. it was the first time in 19 years we’d all been together for christmas. many thanksgivings, but not christmas since 1990. it was awesome to all be together and Harper was totally spoiled, along with the newest addition to the family, little Cole. i contemplated stealing him many times throughout the day, but settled for nomming on his feet and hands. he’s freaking adorable! my cousin katie and her hubs kevin should get some sort of award for babymaking.

i should clarify though that we all got spoiled:

as my family always says at christmastime while we admire a huge pile of gifts, “what do the rich people do for christmas?”. seriously, as these were being opened i feared a child could be lost in the piles of goodies, wrapping paper, tissue and bows. but alas, both kiddos made it out safely, and with much more clothes and toys than they started with. a prime rib and ham dinner of epic proportions followed and by the time we got home it took all of my energy to unload the car. today has been a 3 cup morning and the daunting task of cleaning/organizing/taking down decorations is bothering my ocd side a little bit, yet here i sit NOT doing any of those things. does it make me a geek that i’m blogging instead of taking care of my housewifely duties?

i hope that a) everyone had an equally merry christmas (if that’s your thing) and b) that you’re as exhausted and slacking as much as i am so i can feel better about myself.

for once, that stranger was right. #best09

hen the last couple of weeks of december come around, don’t you feel a crazy urge to make lists and photo montages of the past year? no? just me? ok. well i sure do. it’s like all of a sudden i realize it’s about to be a new year and crap! i should blog about all my milestones and important stuff that happened this year, otherwise people will never know and soon i won’t be able to for a whole ‘nother year! then i eat a cookie or two and relax, because hey, that is what the archives are for. it’s why i don’t do christmas letters. because i can never remember all the stuff and no one wants a letter detailing the ups and downs of poo consistency, toddler meals and how many days this year i successfully put a bra on my boobs. that is what i have this blog for.

so when i came across Gwen Bell’s #best09 project last month, i got super excited and totally planned on doing it. then all of a sudden it was like the 12th of december and i didn’t want to jump in all late (even though that’s so what i do) so i totally gave up. today i checked what the topic was for the 23rd : webtool. since i am totally and 100% technically uh, special,  and could never write a post about anything web-related (exhibit a, this hot mess of a place i lovingly call my blog), i have decided to do tomorrows topic, learning experience. what was a learning experience this year that changed you?

this is what i like to call a loaded question. especially to a new mom. i mean, what didn’t i learn? nearly every day of the last 365, i have learned something new, and almost all of them changed me. and i talk about all of them here. right? right…except the one thing i learned the most about:

my marriage.

you know when you’re engaged and people give you all that advice about being married? you know, like “never go to bed mad” and “marriage is hard work” and stuff? guess what i learned this year? they were right. having a baby really brings marriage to a whole new level. sometimes you see things in your other half that you never knew and sometimes those things make you smile (like how excited he can be to come home and swoop up equally excited little girl) and sometimes those things make you frown (like learning he really can sleep through a shrilling baby scream even though technically, it’s his damn turn). even though Scot and i always made a good team, it’s more important now. you know, since we’re solely responsible for raising an upstanding human being and all.

when H was 6 weeks old we were at the grocery store. i remember as we were putting the groceries in the trunk (Scot) then putting the baby in the car (me) then putting the stroller in the trunk (Scot) then putting the cart back (me) then highfiving (team effort) and being realllly smug about how awesome we were. small victory? yes. but to 2 sleep deprived, spit up covered new parents, it’s huge. since then we’ve conquered even bigger obstacles of parenting and there is nothing more comforting that knowing you can trust the person you signed up for this with.

it wasn’t always easy. rarely do you read an honest piece about how parenthood affects your marriage. i’m not sure if people are lying to themselves or ashamed or what. why is it that complete strangers will openly tell you their opinion on breastfeeding in the checkout line, or warn you of the perils of childbirth (“GET THE EPIDURAL”) but no one ever mentions “oh and your marriage will probably suffer”? i guess with all of the excitement and anxiety about bringing a baby into the world, you just don’t stop to think that said baby might mess with your relationship. next thing you know the baby is here, and it just did something superuber cute and someone didn’t see it because someone had their eyes glued to sportscenter. oh and equally, someone who used to look cute everyday now refuses to wash their hair and boycotts a bra because someone is too tired/busy/lazy to do so.

in closing (and what i mean by that is, i hear Harper waking up from her nap even though i’m not completely done and YES i once again wasted naptime on blogging), i love my husband. i love him more everyday. and lord knows i am freaking lucky he loves me, too. can you imagine putting up with me on the daily (if you need an address to send him sympathy cards, email me)? this year i really learned what people meant by “marriage is hardwork”. it really is, but should always be followed up with “but totally worth it”.

carseat couture [ma, why are we going to Target again? edition]

hree shopping days until christmas. am i done shopping? nooo. thanks to me and my innate ability to procrastinate beyond reason, my child got to see the inside of a Target yet again today. but if she could say more than “hi”, “bye” and a bunch of other words that i’m positive mean something to her but are unintelligible, i’m certain she would have thanked me. why? because it meant she would have to get dressed and out of these jammies:

whats that? hmm? oh, sorry, i can’t hear you over my daughters wildly out of season attire. apparently i’ve been putting “do laundry” right under “go christmas shopping” on my list of superimportant things to do. i have limited time left before i can’t do crap like this because soon Harper will start asking why she’s wearing pumpkin jammies when santa is coming (among other things like “where do pugs come from?” and “mama, why can’t i have some of your juice?”).

luckily we had clean and cute stuff for her to wear in public. pay no mind to the creepy fuzz hand because LOOK A BUNNY!

you mocha me crazy.

noticed recently that a large majority of my tweets (yeah, i actually like tweeting, we can talk about that another day) and facebook status updates involve the word coffee, like, a lot. that i’m drinking it, enjoying it, needing it or NEEDING IT.

my love affair with coffee started young. my moms very favorite ever ice cream has always been hagendaaz coffee. i remember starting when i was 5 she would share her pint with me (seriously a loving gesture only a mother can do). she’d get the pint, 2 spoons, and wrap the container in a kitchen towel and we’d sit and watch whichever movie it was that week that i insisted on watching daily (it went something like this : bedknobs and broomsticks for 7 days, pollyanna for 5 days, mary poppins for 11 days, repeat repeat repeat and OMG i wanted pollyannas dresses and shoes SO BAD).

when Scot and i got engaged, i moved to a new town and quit my desk job that i’d had for 6 years. thanks to pension (yeah i was 24 years old and had a pension plan) and cleaning out my 401k (p.s. NEVER do this, it’s stupid and please for the love of tax penalties, promise me you’ll never DO THIS), i didn’t have to work for the 6 months leading up to our wedding. after the honeymoon, i had to get a job. but what to do? i decided it would be high time to try something new and fun. i became a barista.

kind of a weird choice at 25, as was reminded to me as i sat in tully’s orientation with highschoolers and college students, but i wanted something different. and different is what i got.

whilst i got seriously into coffee, how it’s made, how to make it, and how to steam milk to the perfect fluffy foam, i also got a one way ticket to crazy town courtesy of the people who buy coffee. after a few months of the insanity (i really do mean INSANITY, anyone who has ever been a barista before can back me on this), i began doing things really out of character for me. like burning shots when someone was rude, making decaf drinks for the guy who brought in a list of his co-workers drinks and then didn’t tip, and way overcharging the lady who wouldn’t get off her bluetooth long enough to order and pay for her coffee (you came in here, remember? i’m not interrupting you, you’re interrupting me). i promise you i am not a mean person, but these coffee drinkers? a different breed of people.

(please pay NO attention that i AM totally one of those people, however i am now an impeccable coffee customer. and you should be too : you think i invented any of those moves? uh, no.)

[this would be the part where i insert a photo of me being perky behind an espresso machine circa 2006, except i refused, refused, to ever have my picture taken because there is nothing flattering about khakis, a white polo shirt and one-size-fits all apron. nothing.]

there were days that were fun. i was in charge of the art on the chalkboard and would be unreasonably proud of myself for the puns i would come up with. “Oh my Ganache! Orange you glad it’s chocolate month?” and sending people off with “thanks a latte!” (the line to be my friend is over there…). but then there were the days where the homeless lady on the corner (who i unfortunately always gave free coffee to and repayed me by peeing standing up on our sidewalk in front of the store in broad daylight) would try to smoke in the store and/or try to take a bath in our sink. not to mention the 4:30am start time but, at least i had free access to copious amounts of caffeine and unlimited everything bagels (what? i gained 10 pounds while working there? what?).

these days i do NOT miss being a barista (well, except the free coffee part and the fact that no one can make my americano/breve chai/doppio con panna to my liking), and the extent of my coffee art is pressing “delay brew” on the mr. coffee. but when i do decide to pay someone to make some for me,  i always ask for my drinks in the correct order, tip appropriately and never, ever, pee standing up on the sidewalk in broad daylight.