Here you go, Mom (as Bridget would say)

I finally optimized and posted all the fourth of July pics. Somehow, I have none of Amelia and just these few of Shane. Sorry babies! Mark/Kim - do you have any to add here?

070408 4th of july

Tim said my previous title made no sense SO, Kim, this post was for you in response to the comment you posted on the previous entry... better, tpd?

Kim, I'm glad you asked about this as I do have an opinion/something to say about this notion of the "push present". Let's start here - the def of a push present, or you can read this NYT article here. FYI - I also think, for people like me, there should be a "17 hours of labor only to have my stomach and uterus sliced open" present.

Now, my true feelings about this whole "push present" thing - besides the fact that I absolutely cannot stand the name - is that it's kind of just another way our society is "pushing" (yes, pun intended) superfluous marketing down our throats that is beyond superficial and ridiculously sickening at times, “She delivered your first born; now give her twins.” Puke, puke puke... If I look through another Parenting/Pregnancy magazine with a mom holding her newborn and smiling down at both the baby and the new big whopping piece of jewelry on her neck/finger/wrist, etc. I seriously might throw up in my mouth a little (sorry, that's totally gross, but that's how I feel about that crap marketing). Now, having said that, understand I'm not knocking the actual gift-giving if heartfelt and thoughtout, but more the baggage heaped upon it by marketers and the media. So, that being said if a husband wants to do something well meaning and as a token of his love for his wife and their burgeoning future after the birth of a baby, like say buy her one of these, or take her out to dinner here, who am I to judge?

So, Lil' G (and Michael you might want to take note, too) - I've assembled a few photos of things I think you might need now or in the very near future:

A lovely May birthstone ring for Amelia's birthstone (sorry about that whole pearl thing now Kim - didn't know you were gonna up and have the baby a WHOLE MONTH early and screw up my necklace's symbolic meaning - i'm just kidding of course - sort of)
Personally this next one is a little too much for me, but hey to each their own. The mother and child necklace:

Or you could always roll Marc Anthony style with one of these:

Or, lastly, maybe you are more Keith Urban chic with one of these $73,000 gems:


Glad to help you boys (and the baby marketing industry) out.

ps - No, if you are wondering, I really don't have this much time on my hands these days.

Cheers to you Delant...

Here's to another great year! It's a hard one with lots of work, but lots and lots of rewards... we are lucky people!

Thanks to friends and family for all your continued support - you make us who we are! Who can guess where we are?

If my mom were with the KGB, this is how you could get her to talk...

I also thought about giving this to tpd as a present, but then I decided that I like fish too much for that.

I only wish George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg would have been here...

With tpd out of town the past two nights in Silex Missouri (seriously, Silex? At least my brother goes to cool places like New Orleans...) anyway, that meant I was on my own with two under two at dinner time and bedtime [insert sympathy here - sorry, but I gotta keep playing that up for as long as I still can]. Surprisingly though, I wasn't worried about it at all - I'd already had them both alone numerous times and it was no big deal. Last night though? Last night was NOT no big deal... it was, in fact, a perfect storm of a big deal. A perfectly timed convergence of multiple forces (forces being a sleep-deprived mommy, crabby toddler, over-tired baby, hungry and cooped-up-all-day dogs, doorbell ringing neighbor AND battery-drained rainforest electronic sound soother machine) all crapping out in unison to create a massively impressive display of chaos that surely could have been it's own reality tv show.

Want to know the exact moment that broke me? Shane's "wa wa" fell behind the pack and play. I could not find it. It was simply gone (GONE!) even though I had been in sole possession of it just seconds before the unfortunate finger bobble that led to it's disappearance. So, after searching everywhere in the dark with screaming baby on one arm, I decided to deal with it the best way I could... I cried. No, no - I sobbed. Yes, there I was sobbing on the floor... sobbing, people!... wah wah sobs...for at least a minute or two in unison with the other two [actual] sobbing babies. BUT, finally a happy ending ensued as my finger tips located the wa wa and I emerged from under the pack and play victorious, wa wa in hand. Nevermind the unfortunate face full of dog hair or the faint smell of dog urine burned in my nose hairs (yes, part of the aforementioned perfect storm), nonetheless, I was victorious, the storm receded to a mere drizzle and I would live to see another day... the next day...which brings us to today...

Faced with the same MIA husband scenario tonight, I was going to make sure there would be no perfect storm. Tonight I packed my extreme new mommy weather gear: no umbrella, hat, goulashes (what are those exactly?) for me... for tonight's typhoon I was armed... with food. McDonalds food.

We hit the drive thru on the way home. The ice cream cone was supposed to be for me, (only 2 WW points!) but I was prepared to share. I knew I would hear her protests immediately, "eat? eat? Bridget eat?!" So, I willingly handed it over. Worked like a charm. I won her over immediately...until I made a fatal mistake. I reached into her Happy Meal box and popped a fry in my mouth. She saw it. "French fry? French fry" - "Here you go mommy - all done" (she shouted trying desperately to hand me back the ice cream cone.) "French fry? French fry?"

Now, I have to be honest. At this moment, I was beyond proud. She really was MY daughter. She was handing back an ice cream cone for the much more desired french fry. She was turning down sweets for fried food. [A-HA!] We were related... we were soooo... related. (Most of you have heard me say this before, but I would gladly turn down any kind of sweets in favor of a heaping plate of cheese fries.) All was right in the world, my daughter and I were one... and then this happened...

at least Pinka got to taste french fries...
and at the very least, the sky stayed sunny and bright tonight...
not a storm cloud in sight.

It's kinda like the 4th of July threw up all over my page, eh?

I changed the layout tonight to showcase some of my favorite summer photos (on the left), sorry, I'll have to refine it some, it's a little too much right now, but I'm too sleepy to do anything else to it. I'll leave you with one of my favorite photos from the 4th weekend, I can't even take credit for this one - Big D was the photographer here, I just added the artsy fartsy stuff...

Because flamingo balloons are obvious indicators of quality

eej: Look at that cool garage sale - We HAVE to go there Saturday!

tpd: Mmmm..hmmm

eej: Oh! it's right down the street

tpd: mmm...hmmm.

eej: We'll be the first one's there - like 6 am.

tpd: okay, I give, why do you want to go to this so bad?

eej: tpd, OBVIOUSLY anybody that uses a flamingo balloon to promote their garage sale has got to have awesome stuff.

tpd: and that's exactly why I shouldn't have asked.


*****

Sidenote: While I'm busy blogging making fun of my mental age and finding flamingo balloon images, I'm simultaneously hosting a webinar about conversion rates, analytics and using multi-variant testing to increase macro conversion for web 2.0 consumer behavior... if they only knew....

Ah... save me from my cousin's giant baby head!!!(or something better than that hopefully...)

I realize I still owe prizes to some of my past "contest" winners, like this one (Kim was the big winner) or this one (Tara's been waiting two years for her big prize) but here's another - if you are so inclined to enter- Delanty t-shirt contest. (I mean it this time, I'm getting caught up!)

I thought this pic needed a clever caption/slogan and I'm not coming up with anything so what do you guys have, oh clever internet folk?

PS - Are they not too cute or what - even my son and his GIANT towering head... see the caption possibilities are endless...

She definitely doesn't get this from me...

Hey Matthew! This is what I like to do for an hour! In fact, if you ask me to stop this anytime under at least an hour, I'm likely to collapse in a big teary, screaming heap of a mess on the floor because - don't you know- my teeth are STILL not clean!

Gotta get those toofers in the back.

Mommy, teeth? Mommy teeth?

This one is because, oh dear lord, she insists on wearing her socks with her sandals...
remind you of anyone?

Me + Emotions = All Mixed Up (like that 3-1-1 song)

Yesterday was Shane's first day at Bridget's "school". I'm pretty happy with Bridget going there now, even though that was a rough adjustment at first, too. Maybe it's because she waves goodbye and gives kisses and says in her too cute voice, "bye mom, bye mommy" and everything seems fine or the fact she brings me home her artwork and talks about the "markers" and "colors" she played with making her masterpieces. BUT dropping my new baby off there yesterday SUCKED big time. I mean you put so much time and energy into feeding, napping, playing, tummy times, crying times that it becomes your main job and focus of each day and then yesterday, it just suddenly wasn't anymore.

I handed him over to the "ladies". Don't get me wrong, I love the ladies there (we mainly just call them that cause we get their names all confused). They are all very sweet and loving and they loved Bridget and they were looking forward to Shane coming and getting to know him, but they are NOT ME and they are not my mom and they are not any of my family/friends that know his "rhythm" or his needs. So, relinquishing some of that control for the first time was harder than I expected. I'm not even sure why - maybe because I feel like I worked harder on him or understand him a little better than Babygirl when she was his age or maybe it's just being more experienced, but whatever the case, it stinks. And I am SOOO not like this - I am not a control freak nor do I usually care about schedules and time tables, but when I called yesterday and he was not sleeping very well and had been somewhat fussy, it just got to me big time. Suddenly, I felt like they had no idea what they were doing and that they probably missed his all important "sleep window" and that recovering from that missed window is not easy, and that now he was going to go through a lot of screaming and not sleeping ALL DAY and that if I were at home with him I could "fix" it - even though I totally could not fix it and most days when I am home with him and he is having one of those days I just wish he could be at school and I could concentrate on work.... oh! hello grass - aren't you greener over there?

[Mixed emotions enter here. ] Because you know what else? I really LOVE being back at work by myself. I like sitting at a computer in an office and listening to Jack Johnson and Bob Marley on iTunes (it's a good playlist, don't knock it 'til you've tried it) and taking phone calls and planning out third quarter marketing strategies without having one ear tuned in at all times for a baby crying in the background. I don't have to get up every few minutes and feed or swaddle or shoosh and then come back and try to figure out where I was analyzing the SEO data and why there was a decline in the internet traffic for KP Properties over the past two weeks. So, yesterday and today I kept getting these little pangs of happiness creeping in that things are getting to be a new "normal" again and I like it and then I think of my little babyboy and that he is NOT in his little cradle at home and he most certainly is not being swaddled properly and my little happiness sinks backs to sadness thereby creating one big jumble of emotions.

If anyone would understand, I think it's my favorite emotion-monitoring toddler, Matthew. He would look at me with those big blue eyes and say - "Erin happy? Erin sad?"

Yes, Matthew, Erin happy, Erin sad all at once.

It's all about the Gun Show, isn't it TRD??!

I'll let my pics tell the story of the awesome KC weekend. The cards won, we tailgated in beautiful weather, hung out with good pals, we stayed up late for the first time in a long time and NOT because someone was crying or needed something crazy like a bottle (well, at least not a bottle of formula). All in all it was a very good time and a very nice break for us (thanks to mom's and dad's for taking dogs and kids)! I must say it was almost eerie Friday night when the house was totally empty with everyone except tpd and me... nice, but totally strange.

Hope everyone had a great fourth of July weekend, I'll have to post our lake pics soon and recap what an awesome time we had, but I needed to give KC it's proper props first. Yeah, I typed proper props and I like it...click here to see all.

It's not like I did this for 45 minutes or anything...

Happy Birthday Uncle Mark/Lil' G! Hope it's a great 3-1!

At least the cable guy is going to live...

Here is the view from my office window this morning. I guess this is what happens when your husband finally has enough of the people at Charter Communications and short of committing illegal acts of aggravated assault and murder and such, he is left with only one choice:


I don't know when the last time I saw TPD this giddy was. He's like a little girl waiting in line for the newest American Doll to come out: high-pitched, dancing around wiggly giggly saying things like, "it's only a matter of time now" and "i love this direct tv guy already".

UPDATED: Just now, he walked the DSL guy out the front door and I heard him say with glee in his voice, "today is the day that charter goes away".. he might as well have just grabbed the dsl guy's hand and skipped away into the sunset with him he was so happy.

It was definitely better-ish today

Thanks to all who were worried, but I - well, we (but I'm really mostly worried about me since tpd gets to gallivant with co-workers and real world people and such...but my digression into a bitter world aside) we survived today in tact. He was much better and after many conversations with the nurse we think it was maybe a combo stomach bug/reflux deal and hopefully we will now return to our regularly scheduled fussiness as opposed to the uncontrollable, there's-not-enough-wine-in-the -St.-Louis-area fussiness.

Aunt Kim came to help and dropped off a "miracle blanket" this afternoon and, though I would not yet call this evening a miracle type of night, he is happily sleeping away in his little baby straight jacket as I type. Plus, again, I get to get the heck outta dodge tomorrow for our annual St. Louis/KC ballgame pilgrimage and I couldn't be more excited! Sure I'll miss the kiddos and it is my first time leaving Shane, but I can also sure use the break and it will be fun to tailgate and hang out with friends!

On another note, I laughed outloud at this post as I have so been there. For any new(ish) parent or an experienced pro who could use a good laugh, this is pretty hilarious.

Lastly, I do promise to return to Throwback Thursdays soon, it's just been a little tricky to pull those together. We'll start with a doosy (that should not even be a word) next week!

Happy weekend to you all - I'm out for now.

I know my mom is going to read this and then call me tomorrow and say, "so you had a bad day?" like that Daniel Powter song...

Things are fine - really - but I do want to be honest in this blog and I also want to document our life and use this as a forum to vent and get it all out, so, here goes...

Tonight was rough, hell, today was rough. Unfortunately, it looks like my sweet boy has issues that are proving to be very similar to Bridget's even though they took longer to manifest themself. I think the hardest thing for me about this is not understanding the why/what/how/when scenario. It's such an up and down roller coaster of emotions. One day I feel like I have it completely together and we have a routine and I can deal with his "fussiness" and then the next I am a crazy mom googling things like, "8 week old won't sleep", "8 week old needs to be held constantly", "8 week old overstimulated" and the dreaded, "colic symptoms".

Yesterday I finally called the doctor after it became increasingly apparent that the Mylanta we were trying to help with his "crying spells" and fussing was not working. "Oh, yeah, these things run in families" she laughed. I politely giggled, but I think I was crying on the inside. What? What about the cosmic balance of one difficult baby, one breeze baby? What about that? Everyone had said surely we wouldn't have the same issues and, to be fair, we didn't... at first. But I had never heard of the "run in families" fussy baby phenomenon - fair warning to you all! Our doc upped us to Pepcid (the same thing baby girl was on not even two years ago for acid reflux). After one dose yesterday, he had the calmest evening in weeks. I was optimistic, I thought we had found the cause and I was so glad to fix his crying and inability to lay down and sleep. I thought he would be a happier, more playful little baby boy that I can tell he so wants to be... and then came today. As I sit here now, he has been sleeping for 20 minutes which is longer than any stretch of sleep thus far today. I feel like I literally spent the whole day patting, shooshing and swaddling to no avail. I moved from room to room with my fussy, non-sleeping baby all day. I'm not even sure how it got to be 9:51 right now.

So, baby Shane, I want to let you know I love you a lot, but this time with you is definitely challenging and mostly because I just wish I could make you better when you have your crying fits. In fact, it gives me flashbacks to how it was with your sister, too, and having those same feelings. However, that in and of itself is comforting because, until recently, I did not remember the bad things. The big difference is this time I know it will get better and I know it will be okay, but right now I am admitting that this is hard and that I don't always do well with this stuff. I want to make you better, I want to make you happy and it hurts when I can't.

I wish I was the type of person that could just carry him around the house all day and night, but I'm not. I need time away, I need a break and days like this with no break and screaming that lasted from about 5pm through 9:30pm just really really suck. Save for throwing a dirty poopy diaper at tpd's head, there's been little lightheartedness in the Delant household tonight, but we know this too shall pass, especially this weekend when we leave this little bundle of joy with grandma and grandpa - I bet you can't wait for that now, can you?

If you're wondering whether I let her play with it, the answer is....

We're going to do what? Play with dough?

She's ready to go, but first...

mommy had to make the birdy on the outside of the package.

It took everything within me to let her hold it.

See, this is why I can't let her play with it - notice the specs of different colors
she smashed in the pink? Those might as well be the longest
fingernails ever scratched on a chalkboard to me...

Allright, I gave in... but I'm getting my own playdoh today.

I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

These case studies were conducted on one of my biggest clients, Sydney's Closet, by one of our vendors, Sitebrand. So, I know it's not totally impartial journalism here, but I still think they did a good job (as did Phyllis and I) about tooting our horn, right Mary Jane? :)

I'm a social networking and internet marketing junkie these days (read: BIG TIME DORK) so this was fun to talk about and get involved in. Plus, simply by posting this here, I'm helping our SEO inbound link score, so more power to me.

Interview from Internet Retailer / Blog entry

PDF case study about us

PS - I don't really have an apartment or leather-bound books for that matter, however,
I am kind of a big deal.

Deja Vu and not in a good way

When we were preparing for Miss Bridget's arrival, one of the biggest meltdowns I had was in, yes in, Babies R Us in the middle of all the nursery furniture. We're talking full blown tears and snot nose. We could not find/agree on the perfect nursery furniture whatsoever. We finally comprimised and ended up going with black as we simply could not find a dark wood that we liked in a crib style we liked. Fast forward two years (almost exactly) later and I'm finding myself in the same spot, only this time I actually have the baby first and have thereby avoided the full blown hormonal meltdown of two years ago. Still, though, for the past four weeks, we've shopped at every baby furniture store in St. Louis, hitting both Babies R' Us's and even Baby Depot - I've poured, borderline obsessed, over online crib shopping and yet still - nada, nothing - that makes me happy for less than $700. Yes, amazingly, I can find a $988 crib that I could live with, but get down into $300 land and not so much.

Anyway, my intent is not to bore you all with our mundane nursery furniture problems, although I'd like to have this baby in his own room by the time he goes to college and at this rate, I'm not sure if that will happen... BUT, while obsessing over reviews of products, I found myself lol (see how cool I am that I stuck LOL in my post) at some of the things people write in their reviews. For your entertainment, I've compiled a few of my favorite crib product reviews... from real people who went back and reviewed their crib after they purchased it (ps - who does that? It's certainly nice and all, but on my personal priority scale, I must admit posting online reviews is not so high), but without further ado, here are my favs (NOTE: I did not edit them in any way, I wanted to show them in all their glory, spelling and all....):

• When we picked up the crib, there were large boot prints all over the box, and I was concerned that the crib would be damaged. When we opened it, there was a chunk missing out of the top of the front rail. Otherwise, I'm happy with the purchase.

• I'm glad I waited, the bed is beautiful...one of the legs was damaged pretty severely.
  
  
• I highly resommend doing this with 2 people. Peices are somewhat heavy. I didnt like the way directions make heavy peices hang by nails support peice broken while it was hangin in buy screw while i was screwing in other peices and snapped. I was able to wood glue back hold in place and after my fiance and i were done and the changing table is beauitful!!
  

• Keep in mind that this does not have drop sides, if you are a short or heavy person, you may have difficulty leaning and bending over the squared off railings.
  
  
• We bought this for our daughter who is due next month. We haven't changed a baby on it yet, but have practiced on it and it looks like it's going to be great.
  
  
• When we called Storkcraft to get new parts they were so friendly and accomodating. We ended up getting the wrong parts, though, because the originals were labeled wrong, so we told them the wrong part. We ended up putting it together like it was and no one can tell the messed up parts. The bed itself was very frustrating to put together, but we have had several pieces of furniture by several different companies that were difficult to assemble. I love this crib!
  

And, my personal favorite:

• It was a little difficult to put together at first, but after reading the instructions, it was easy.

Two kids in two father's day - who would've thunk it D-lant?

No babies were harmed in the making of this blog entry.
Relax - we didn't let him drink the WHOLE bottle... geez.

Happy Father's Day, tpd! You the daddy man!
Happy Father's day to my daddy, too!

Very very sad, I'll miss you Tim

I love Tim Russert. He exudes intelligence to me and his political rhetoric and insight has always been a favorite of mine. I'm so sad to hear of his untimely passing and I'm sure he will be greatly missed this election year and in the future. I know I'll personally miss Meet the Press and Tim with his little dry erase board as election results come in.

Here's more of the story if you were also a fan. Oh, man, this is just the kinda thing that makes you feel a little punched in the gut on an otherwise normal day... sigh.