Happy Summer!

I hope you are all having a fantastic summer!  Things are still the same around here.  Hectic schedule, play with LJ, dinner with Jax, rinse and repeat.  But let's chit chat about something different today, shall we?

LJ's first birthday is tomorrow.  TOMORROW.  Holy shit.  One year ago at this very moment, I was in labor.  I didn't know I was in labor.  Actually, I think more appropriately, I was in labor and denial at the same time.

After about 5 hours of "cramps, " and on my mother's advice, I called the doctor's office.  When I explained what was happening, the nurse laughed at me and told me to go to labor and delivery.  I was one day shy of 39 weeks.

We got on the road to make the hour and 15 minute drive to the hospital and my contractions had finnaly gotten painful.  They were only 3 minutes apart.  It was a little scary, but I had faith that I wasn't going to have my baby on the side of the road.  By the way, they will NOT give you an epidural in the hospital parking lot.  I asked.

Long story short, I started having cramps around 11am, got to the hospital around 7pm, and had my epidural around 9:30pm.  The epi slowed my contractions, so they gave me the smalled bit of pitocin.  I was 10 cm dilated by 11pm.  After two hours of pushing, and me spiking a 102 degree fever, my baby boy was born at 1:01am.

Labor wasn't bad at all.  The first few weeks were hell.  But I would do it all over again.  LJ is perfect.  We are very blessed.

He is almost walking.  He says bo-ty (bottle), Doooo (Duke), Mama, Da-ddy (hilarious to hear), na-na (night night), bear, fiss (fish), uh-oh, and duun (done).  That's all I can think of right now.  And he signs "more" and "all done." 

He goes to bed around 7:30pm and sleeps until anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30am.  Sometimes we are lucky and he sleeps until 7, but usually it is around 6.

It is hard to believe that a year has gone by.  And I know how very lucky and blessed I am to have such a happy, healthy little boy.

Y'all have a great weekend!  We will be celebrating with good food, cake, ice cream, and fun presents!

Break

So it seems that I've taken a bit of an unintentional bloggy break.  Sorry about that.  My day is so crammed these days that I just can't seem to find the time... hell, most days I can barely put a sentence together, much less write something worth reading.  Yes, I'm whining.  It is annoying.  No one wants to read that, right?

In an effort to make everyone feel my pain- not really- I'm going to give you a run down of a day in the life of AJ.  Fasten your seat belts.

5:15- alarm goes off.  Check Twitter and see what I missed, duh.
5:30- coffee, news, try to wake up a little
5:45- more than likely LJ is waking so I have to scoop him up, get him changed, and give him some puffs
6:00- wake up Jax, hand off LJ for a bottle, start getting ready for work
6:45- start packing up LJ's stuff for the day
6:50- hopefully out the door
7:05- drop LJ off at daycare
8:25- get to work, if traffic was light I might grab a latte on the way in

*At this point I bust my ass until 5:00.  Sometimes I get a lunch break, but most often I don't.  I'm the only person in my office right now.  It super SUCKS.

5:00- leave my office to sit in traffic
6:15- get home, if I'm lucky and traffic wasn't too bad
6:17- get a glass of wine
6:20- start fixing LJ's dinner
6:30- feed LJ
6:45- LJ's bath
7:00- LJ gets a bottle
7:15- get LJ ready for bed
7:30- start cooking dinner, eat, maybe watch a show on tv
9:00- hopefully getting in bed so that I can try to get a full 8 hours of sleep

Seriously, I couldn't make this shit up.  Everyone's got their busy days. 

Cuteness Overload

My precious little boy....  He isn't really a baby anymore.  Take a look at the proof.

And my other baby boy

I'm one lucky mother.  Okay, I can't lie... that last sentence was funny.  Just me?  Sorry, I have a weird sense of humor.  I hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day weekend!

One Year Ago...

This was me about a year ago.  It is so hard to believe it was a year ago!  It seems like it has been five years.  My little baby is turning into a little boy.  And I can't lie, when I look at these I miss being pregnant. 



Oh My Girls Weekend

Yep, it has taken me this long to somewhat recover.  Well, kind of.  I'm still tired, but these days when is that not the case?  So I got an amazing stress relief by hanging with the friends who know me best.  And thank God because that means they know what to expect out of me.

We stayed on Isle of Palms in Little Daina's fiancee's beach house.  Pretty sweet.  Doesn't get much better than that!  Drinks were ON as soon as we got to the house.  And snacks.  Good Lord the snacks.  And cupcakes.  From Cupcake.  Pure heaven.

Anyway, aside from the food... the weekend was magnificent.  Joy and I slept in a striped room.  It was vomit-inducingly striped.  Navy and white stripes that made the room seem like it was spinning.  And no, that wasn't the alcohol.

We went out Friday night for Mexican.  Excuse me, nasty Mexican food.  The server couldn't speak English and gave me some strange combination of chips, beef (?), and cheese that was supposed to be nachos.  I love nachos almost as much as I love cupcakes, so this was a major travesty.  For anyone who doesn't know me, I do not hide my feelings well.  AT.  ALL.  Not to mention that the server looked at me funny when I asked where the sour cream, and gaucamole, and lettuce, and tomato, and SHIT THAT OUGHT TO BE ON FUCKING NACHOS was.  Sorry for my outburst, but I'm passionate about nachos.

Luckily, we went back to the house before anyone else could piss me off.  We had a lovely time chit chatting over wine and I actually woke up Saturday morning feeling great!

Well, great until I had breakfast.  It was fantastic, but my stomach isn't used to much more than a granola bar and coffee in the morning.  Oh, and speaking of coffee, it seems that I may have woken up everyone in the house when I went into the kitchen at 7:00am to make coffee.  It was a total Folgers moment, for sure.

Linds and I went shopping and she introduced me to the Dollar Spot at Target.  I got an awesome Royal Hat for just $2.50!  And I bought Joy some neon green Kanye West glasses... that she still hasn't worn.   Whatevs.

Since I burnt up my check card, I figured the next best thing to do was go burn on the beach.  Of course I wore my SPF, buuuuttt I may have gotten a little on the crispy side.  Actually, in some strange places.  That spray stuff is weird.  I do believe at one point in the evening I said that it looked like I had flames coming from my crotchal region.  Hmmm.  Anyway.

Little Daina's lingerie shower was hilarious.  The girl has never worn a thong in her life.  She was so cute and embarrassed and Gung-Ho at the same time.  She is pretty dang awesome.  Then we all got showered and changed and headed out to dinner.  PS. someone may or may not have gotten punched in the ass a few times by someone who might have gotten roofied out on the beach.  Or something like that.  I don't think the roofied person spoke much English, so it is hard to know really what was going on.

Dinner was nice, dancing afterward was super fun, and I was damn tired by the time we got back to the beach house.  I haven't spent that much time with the girls in a long time and it was much overdue.

As promised, I have no pictures.  Well, yet.  I might be able to steal some off of Facebook or something.  It might be a good thing that we don't do this often.  It might just kill me.  Oh yeah, and before I forget, I had a massive chocolate cupcake with a mountain of chocolate icing and fudge on top for breakfast on Sunday.  The perfect ending to a pretty perfect weekend.  xoxo to my favorite girls :)

Guest Post: Frenemies

Ladies and Gents, it is time again for a Guest Post from my good friend over at Ghostman on 3.  I'm sorry I've been so absent, but maybe this small exchange of fightin' words will make up for it.  This is how we spend our precious evenings conversing with each other.  For real.

 

The Twitterverse is all abuzz this morning, following the announcement from @ajakz of an old-fashioned street fight, aka dance-off, between herself and @jambon3. While the challenge appears to be nothing more than some "friendly competition," rest assured these things never end nicely. Feelings will get hurt, asses will be made, muscles will be pulled. It's not going to be pretty. But, then again, what duals are??

 

So, how did this all transpire?? Was @jambon3 provoking @ajakz, attempting to take advantage of @ajakz's recent knocked-upness? Was @ajakz bluffing, knowing all along she has a massive advantage (i.e., years of dance experience vs. @jambon3's years of watching Soul Train and The Grind on TV and subsequent failed attempts to replicate moves in public)? Was this just all for publicity to promote @ajakz's new movie or @jambon3's new t-shirt? Was this just an attempt to overshadow the "reason for the season," i.e., Daina? Was this the result of drunken text messages? Who will be the Vegas favorite to bring the title home? Will the world be able to pick sides without feeling guilty?

 

Anyways-the original question was, how did this all happen? It kind of (verbatim) went down like this:

 

Joy: "....I can't stand the thought of being on the receiving end of your infamous 'stank eye.' Pls smile &get drunk with me!!

 

AJ: "I told you, I'm going with the flow. It is so fucking on. Word."

 

Joy: "are you interested in bars or clubs Saturday night? Do u have any recommendations?"

 

AJ: "Doesn't matter. A bar with a tv would be nice, so I can unleash my inner redneck and check on the race."

 

Joy: "Ohhh. I don't even know who you are anymore...."

Joy: "Clubs do kind of suck....I'm a baseball gal, meself."

 

AJ: "Hmmmm, I can still bust a move with the best of 'em."

 

Joy: "Dance off!!!"

 

AJ: "Oh hell to the Yes Ma'am! Bring it."

 

Joy: "Oh Imma bring it. Its been brought (COD, though)"

 

AJ: "Imma let you finish, but I'm the best dance in the world."

 

Joy: "They call me Beyone at work...Just so you know.."

 

AJ: "Beyone? Is that like Beyonce? But the white version?"

 

Joy: "Dick"

Joy: "Beers"

 

AJ: "Dick beers? They make those? LOL"

 

Joy: "Gross. I hope not. Lol hard, tho."

Joy: "Oh. Ha. Just saw your Kayne joke. Love it!!"

 

AJ: "I love it, too!"

 

Joy: "Seriously, though. I've been accepted to this elite dance school but have befriended some African Americans who have been tring to teach my how to be cool and less white. Basically, I've got moooooves. I learnt them on th streets.."

 

AJ: "Maybe we can have a preview Friday before our big dance off Saturday in da cluuub."

 

Joy: "Hmmm...that would then give you time to practice...ehh..I guess I could hold back some.... Done."

 

AJ: "Oh, don't hold back on my account. I'm gonna go all Usher on your ass. Would say Britney, but she's cray-cray."

 

Joy: "Never! I'm bringing my meat dress, my scars from bashing Rhiana's face in, &my Justin Bieber harcut Sat nite & will probably do nothing more than embarrass myself."

 

AJ: "I'm coming in an egg/embryo."

 

Joy: "I'm going to just appear...there may be an explosion and some lights or something, but I will seemingly appear from fire...."

 

AJ: "I'm going to wear a big snake."

 

Joy: "I'm going to light my jheri curl in fire &pee my pants on-stage. I may or may not lip-synch my greatest hits."

 

AJ: "Well I'm gonna get fat and then go on Jenny Craig, the be on Dancing with the Stars and make out with Madonna at the mtv awards."

AJ: "I might even commission Weird Al to make a parody of the whole thing."

 

Joy: "I'm going to shave my head and go pantiless. I might dance at some point, while I pretend to not be married to Jay-Z."

 

So, as you see, it began very friendly and quickly turned durrrrty. And by dirty, I mean ridiculous. But, let's not be distracted by all the hype. Because there is going to be hype. Let's just focus on one thing: Are you Team Joy or Team AJ? You can't be both, and you can't choose neither. It's kind of like the ultimate "Sophie's Choice" but set in the lovely Charleston, as opposed to the Holocaust...

 

This Dance Off will commence Saturday night, or sometime this weekend.  One of us will post pictures- I think you know it probably won't be me, but I will try!  Have a good one!

Hey Summer, You Are Being Warned

When I left for work yesterday morning, it was almost cold outside.  When I returned?  It was warm, the air was heavy with moisture... and it was awesome.  Summer is coming!  And I intend to make every moment count.  I plan to spend all of my time in the sun, water, and fresh air with my family and friends.

As far as I am concerned, summer officially begins next weekend.  One of my dear friends from high school is getting married and we are celebrating the end to her single days with a nice, relaxing weekend at the Isle of Palms.  Okay, so maybe not relaxing, but I swear my goal is to get a nap in at some point (please?!). 

So I can just jet over after work and begin a little mini-vacation!  YAY!  The plan so far... food, drinks, more food, more drinks... and some time on the beach (weather permitting).  My new bikini is on the way.  I can't wait!!!

And OHMAHGAWD, my baby is turning a year old in less than TWO months!  I seriously might die.  Time to start the party planning!  They say that the party for the first year is more of a celebration for the parents.  You know, like, "We made it a whole year and he is still breathing!  High five!"  Yep, that will be us.  Because a lot of this year has been more about survival than anything else.  And it has been amazing.

Alright summer, BRING. IT. ON!