KID car.

We took at little road trip this weekend to visit my bad ass brother that plays football at ACU.

Last year was cake as Brooklyn was 6 weeks old. This year, not so much, and I learned a little some about myself: I officially have KID CAR.

First of all, my SUV (mom car) has two captains chairs in the middle, then a very back seat that can fold down. It gets folded down for all the shit we bring with us now. It honestly looks like we are moving when in reality we are leaving for ONE night. Let me repeat, ONE NIGHT.

There is a giant bag of toys that sits between the captains chairs. Giant bag'o'toys is supposed to be a life saver when the little one wakes up but all I find is that she gets bored, quickly, with pushing buttons that make safari sounds. She looks at me as if to say, 'listen crazy bitch if you ask me what a monkey sounds like one more time I WILL CUT YOU!' So, said bag of toys ends up all over the floorboard, and then some.

Snacks. Road trips have a plethera of snacks but not the good ol' bag of beef jerky like we used to have. It's more crackers, fruit, etc...of which suddently seem to turn her into the HULK and she crushes anything and everything I put in her little hand. It's like those confetti eggs we all hated, but instead of paper it's made of mushy food. Her car seat and my floor with covered with crumbs. Awesome.

I can admit this, I'm not scurred. I used to walk by peoples cars that I could tell had kids and think, 'OMG look at that dump. Pick up your shit and quit letting your kids take over your life.' I know, slap slap to me. Just thought some were too lazy for their own good, and still do, but have a fresh perspective on what monsters  kiddos can do to/in the back seats.

Terrorize
Spill
Crumble
Throw
Destroy

...in the first 30 minutes.

For every 30 minute interval double the size of KID CAR that is happening. We were on the road collectively for 7 hours this last weekend. You do the math.

F'ing disaster.

I cleaned it out when we got home because I didn't want mistakenly start being filmed for the next crazy freakshow hoarders episode.

Moms and Dads I was better than, yeah...sorry about that. You can stop stabbing the voodoo doll now though, I get it. I have KID car now too.

Perspective, one year later.

4 weeks after having a Brooklyn I posted about 10 lessons I had learned since she was born. A year later, I'd like to add some perspective to these observations:

1.) There is no such thing as 'quickly' changing a diaper. You must always have the changing pad and replacement diaper in hand, if you don't you will end up paying $37.41 to have your comforter dry cleaned.

One year later: Add bottle spills, sticky medicine, crumbs of food that were stuck to her...you just live with a dirty comforter until you are having a people over at which point you eat the $ and get it cleaned, again.

2.) You can't avoid spit up so don't try. Even if you cover yourself in burp cloths it will ultimately find the one piece of exposed clothing and land there.

One year later: Spit up goes away pretty quickly and really never amounted to much. Baby food was much messier.

3.) Babies know when you are trying to do the quiet and delicate lay down in there crib. The will immediately wake up no matter how hard you had them to sleep. Just put them down, save yourself the humiliation.

One year later: She can scream her brains out until she falls asleep, it's nap time or bed time when I say so.

4.) Designate specific pockets in the diaper bag for things. Diaper bags come with 100 different pockets, if you just throw your stuff in there it will take hours to find where you put the butt paste or pacifier, and you don't have time for searching. Very important lesson learned.

One year later: Lesson never learned as I am constantly looking through everything to find whatever the hell it is I'm looking for. I've got pretty good organization skills so therefore I blame Coach, for a cute, but not very functional product. Which is why I am about to switch products and order one from CSNbaby.com, they sell diaper bags to nursery furniture. Review to follow to see if in fact it's the bag, or the mom.

5.) Don't sit near the front of any restaurant. Everyone that comes in the door wants to look at your baby and talk to you. This is nice sometimes but when you're trying to enjoy a nice dinner with your hubby this causes way too many interuptions.

One year later: Still true and a good lesson. Especially as they get older you purposely want that not so obvious table so when they are hurling food at you or the floor it's not as embarassing.

6.) Don't bother putting socks on a baby, they always fall off and you end up with one of every pair.

One year later: True. And true for shoes too.

7.) Just take the photo.

One year later: TRUE. And my poor child endured some grueling photo shoots with me as the photographer. Like these,


8.) DVR things throughout the day so you have something to watch when you're up at 3:30 a.m. Paid programming gets old.

One year later: True, but thankfully paid programming isn't necessary by about month 4 I know, lucky me.

9.) You will always be late not matter how hard you try, so tell folks you'll be there 30 minutes after everyone else.

One year later: Nah, you get the routine down and it's definitely far less overwhelming to get anywhere. You get so good at packing up that you can even include the high chair, pack-n-play, leap frog sing along table, etc...with time to kill.

10.) You can blow dry your hair, put on make up, change clothes, make spaghetti, do dishes, laundry, and write your blog with just one hand.

One year later: TRUE and TRUE, because well, Mom's rule.

One year later I've got whole new list now, polishing it up then going to share. This one involves things like which brand of vodka gives you the quickest buzz, how to cope with family no longer paying attention to you, and shaking off the temper tantrum/full body scream of terror mid-grocery shop.