Dating my husband again.

2010 seemed to come and go in a flash of "Will you watch the baby while I brush my teeth/pee/pour cereal/breathe without a child sticking their hand in my mouth." A lot of tag teaming. A lot of "I hate your guts for getting 8 uninterrupted nights of sleep in a Palace of Peace while I wrestled a monster with an ear infection every moment I was not at work." Palace of Peace was usually some motel in the middle of Nevada where bringing your own pillow was advisable in order to prevent attracting a pink eye super bug or some other fun souvenir but emphasis on the word peace.

So much about our world has changed in ways I wanted. Still, the Mel + Jared time is not something I want to give up.

I've experimented with letting Liza watch Phin, but she's in her teen (doggy) years and all about getting tail. Literally. I caught her with the friggen cat's tail in her mouth the other day. Perv. So her mind is clearly not in the right place to make sure Phinny doesn't eat a bobby pin.

So here are my 2011 ideas to catch some bff time.

Upgrading the gym membership. Did you know for just a mere twenty bucks a month I can add on unlimited daycare since Phin is over six months. UNLIMITED. My gym has a spa. My gym has treadmills next to each other. My gym has a toilet I can use without Phin screaming at the door (or pulling at my leg if I’m feeling particularly weak.) Lucky for us, twenty isn’t going to break the bank. Seriously though. I’d consider changing my health insurance to get the funds. What good is a decent co pay when you have to pay a mental hospital for a six month stay after your nervous breakdown? Jared and I can hang out in a hot tub and pretend we’re on the bachelor any day of the week. Score.

Redbox. Now that Phin is going to bed earlier we can pop in a movie, get our nacho on and remember why we like each other. Which we do, I swear. Like, like even.

Trade babysitting. It is really hard to let someone else watch your baby. I know that I am not the most amazing mother in the history of ever, but I really feel like I can keep Phin safe. I don’t trust anyone else to protect my little baby, but if I ever want to see a movie again or sit at a restaurant that doesn’t have a coloring page on the back of the placemat I’m going to have to let that go.

I’m open to some more ideas if you have them. Clearly this is a work in progress.

DIY queen. QUEEN!

This year I kinda suck in the Christmas/wife/citizen department. Last year was also slightly sucky but I blamed it on being miserable and pregnant. I wonder if for the rest of my life I will have something to excuse the fact that I have presents with no tags (my bad Steve, that Victoria's Secret set was for Na, but I think you'd smell great in Pure Seduction) and a tree that might burst into flames at any given second due to the fact that I haven't watered it in three weeks.

Either way, I checked out some photos from Christmas past to reassure myself that I've totally improved.

Example one. Circa 2003

I always tell people that one of our first years married we were so poor that we couldn't afford stockings so we stole a pair of my sisters old soccer socks and wrote our names on them with permanent marker. Shove a fake poinsettia on it and voila. Don't worry people, this won't be turning into a diy blog anytime soon.

But seriously, what the hell? Was this the year I couldn't kick the glue habit? Actually, that year would have been 1988 and I was waaay craftier then. I rocked that macaroni necklace project like a mini Jared (the one that has Just in front of his name and not the one living in my house). And in the name of full disclosure I was more of a glue eater than sniffer but I'm sure that can't be any better for the brain cells.

Side note Monster, don't eat glue.

If I could afford stuff to shove in the sock, couldn't I have just run down to the dollar store and grabbed a stocking? I definitely wasn't in an eco phase, but I might start claiming that. I was just re purposing people. And no, I didn't wash the socks. My machine wasn't energy star approved.

I should finish this blog, but my monster is ready to torch something small and flurry until then, a picture of my best excuse.

Stick a monster in something cute and fluffy and you have the perfect Trojan horse. Don't give him any money, I'm pretty sure he's running some sort of ponzi scheme.