Weird things of late

First of all, I've never watched The Apprentice before, let alone the Celebrity Apprentice but any T.V show that puts L'il John and Gary Busey together, is screaming for me to watch it.
So I feel like the winter is making everyone, myself included, pretty effing squirrly. Can we please just get to April already!?! This winter has been brutal and, like every other winter, I question why we live here. Then I read the paper and I realize why.
Then I go to Scarborough and I question my choices again.
I went to the Costco in Scarborough the other day. There aren't any in the city.To begin, you know you're getting old when you get a Costco membership for Christmas. No one says to a spunky 24 year old girl, "Here, Have a Costco membership! You can get all of your paper towels, cat food and diapers for so much cheaper than the grocery stores." I tell ya, if I had a Costco membership when I was 24 I would be getting giant packages of giant condoms. Cause I was getting so much. HI-YOOOOOOOO. I would probably have also gotten a lot of perogies.
Anyhow, I'm in the produce section when a woman who really had that Scarborough air about her approached me and Dexter. Dexter is going to be 1 in a few weeks so he is absolutely ridiculously cute and gets approached by a lot of people, cause he's so effing gorgeous. She says in a pack-a-day voice, "He's so cute, how old is he?"
I say, "Nearly a year." I look in her buggy and she has a car seat with a newborn in it. I look in and say, "She's so beautiful, congratulations."
"Thanks" she replies.
Then she leans in close enough so that I can smell mock chicken, Players extra light and semen. She says, "You'd shit yourself if you knew I had 6 others at home."
Wow.
I mean, seriously, wow.
You're right lady. I have just shit my pants right here in front of the ceaser salad sample lady. I don't know what's more disturbing; the tear you have tattooed down your cheek, the fact that you have 7 children or that you've just said to a complete stranger, "You would SHIT yourself". She could have said, "you would be surprised", or "can you believe" but nope, she went right for it. Anyhow, as I shuddered away from her I thought to myself, it's time Costco in Scarborough started to sell club packs of birth control.
Not that I'm some high-society flyer. I went up to Markham, baby in tow, to fight a parking ticket, this week.
Here's the thing. The parking ticket is only $30.00 but when you're getting them on a semi-regular basis, you have to fight the man. If you fight your ticket, there is a small chance you'll have to go to court. Most of the time they get lost and you hear nothing of them. It's a bit of effort to take them downtown to fight, but worth it if you're getting a lot of them. Anyhow, I actually had to go to court for one we got in 2009. We had gotten it on my father-in-laws car, parked in front of our house. Bringing the baby with me, I knew I would get attention and that I could treat the experience with a light heart. That's one of the best things about having a baby by your side; everyone is way nicer to you and you can get away with a lot more.
Here's an example.
As I was walking through security the cop asked me, "What are you here for?" I replied, fist pumped in the air,"JUSTICE!"
He laughed. Now if I didn't have the baby with me he probably would have thought I was a jackass and a weirdo. The baby is a great accessory for comedy. People assume, if you're a Mom, that you're a responsible, tax paying citizen. Little do they know.
So now we're in the courtroom, along with about 20 other people who are after justice. I was the first person up to fight for my rights. They say a bunch of stuff, and the judge looks at Dexter and says "Is this Michael Macky?" The courtroom giggles. Ok, cool, this judge wants to joke around. I think we all know that Dexter isn't the one who got the parking ticket. I say, "No, this is my lawyer." The courtroom laughs even harder than before. "ORDER IN THE COURT!" I yell. No, just kidding, I didn't do that. The judge didn't even crack a smile at my joke, I think he was pissed I got a bigger laugh. Anyhow, the ticket was reduced to $10 from $30. That's what always happens if you just plead guilty. Did I drive all the way up to Markham to save $20? Yup, and I'll do it again City of Toronto by-law a-holes.
If anyone wants me to go and fight a parking ticket on their behalf, let me know. I'm pretty much V.I.P up there.

Baby Proof my boobs

Dexter just turned 11 months old. Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on? He's doing great, nearly walking and learning quickly how to make a dirty gin martini for Mommy.
Here's something they don't tell you in pre-natal class, even though you're done breastfeeding,( I've been done for about 3 months) you still have some leftovers in there. Not quite the same as Thanksgiving leftovers, doesn't taste as nice on a sandwich. Your boobs really do take a beating after you've had a baby. I mean, we all hear (before we get pregnant) that they change and all that, but I really think we all think we'll be different. "Oh, I'll get my body back right away", we think quietly to ourselves. "My boobs will just get right back to their former glory." These subtle thoughts lurk in the back of all of our minds , pre-baby, right? I mean look at Gisele Bunchen or Brooke Burke or JLo. They're all just regular women and look at them. Right back to good in 3 months or under. That's going to be me. I'm here to tell you it's not. Listen, you get your body back, but it's a bit of a softer version. Genetics play a part in it of course, and I'm pretty lucky, I feel like I've done ok considering I haven't really done much exercise. Maybe you'll get super lucky and your body will be exactly the same, and maybe monkeys might really fly out of Mike Myers butt. Don't get too upset, things aren't too drastic. I mean you won't be able to touch your bellybutton with your (can't wait for that!)but lets just say that the girls become slightly dough-ier than they once were. Simply not as firm. When you first stop breast feeding your actual nipples are kind of funny too but I don't want to ruin the surprise for some of you so I won't reveal that amazing secret. And as for your belly, it obviously goes down but the fact is, your skin has stretched so much, it's pretty hard to get it back, unless you get some Goslin-surgery. Sit-ups and exercise and diet help but how do you reverse stretching skin? If anyone knows, please share it and if you're one of those people who got their flat stomach back pretty quickly, shut up and get a paper cut. I should probably care more, but I honestly don't. I refuse to stop eating cheese and that's that. Anyhow, I'm off to eat some curds. Cheese curds.

Please don't sue

A few blogs back I mentioned that for a few months, late last year, I was the spokesperson for a large company that sells baby product. I have to be careful what I say so I'll tell you that the name of the aforementioned company rhymes with Scabies R' Pus. It's true! I was paid to fly around Canada, go on Breakfast Television in the major cities, and be one of those buffoons who carries on (at way too early in the morning) about some idiot crap no one cares about. In this case, it was baby crap. I took the gig because, well, the money was decent and I've been on Mat Leave. Why not? My friend hooked me up with it and for that I'm totally grateful. She could not have known the experience that would ensue. Needless to say, I got the boot, not really surprising. Hawking baby crap is the antithesis of what I am but money is money and I'm not above selling my soul for a few bucks. Or selling my body. What a sec, who said that?
I may have mentioned , on live TV, that I was going to drink wine out of my sons sippy cup, but in my defense it was in Winnipeg and I was just trying to be relateable. In Vancouver I may have mentioned some people are really into thumb sucking...like a fetish, so I can see how they figured I wasn't a good "fit". They were totally right to fire me. My loving husband tells me that I'm not allowed to come on this blog and speak negatively of Scabies R' Pus. He's right, we could get sued. So that being said I will say only positive things of the company. For example, Scabies R' Pus does a great job at saving money on travel, using only the most economical hotels for business travel.As well, Scabies R' Pus does an AMAZING job at avoiding employee obesity by limiting their food and drink Per Diem to as little as humanly possible. If you're an employee of Scabies R'Pus it's probably less painful than being Rob Fords wife during intercourse.
Is it wrong that the baby is in bed and I'm drinking scotch? Butch? Yes. Delicious? Absolutely. I have to honestly say that not drinking while pregnant was really challenging. Honestly, hardest 5 months of my life.
Until next time.

It's in a name

I've discovered that even though I live in the city, I am far from urban. How did I come to this conclusion? I looked at a flyer today and went to No Frills to buy the ribs that were on sale. I am officially a Mom. I'm only a heartbeat away from cutting coupons. I don't know if I'm ready to accept this harsh reality. Anyhow, let me tell you, No Frills lives up to its name; especially this one. See, not only was I at No Frills, I was at a No Frills in Scarborough.This particular No Frills really adheres to the whole "No Frill" philosophy when they're hiring staff. It's like it was a prerequisite for employment to no longer have even one of your original teeth. I felt like I had walked into a needle exchange program. Where do they find these women? Normally I enjoy grocery shopping. It's one of the few domestic chores that I genuinely enjoy. I usually go to Loblaws or Sobeys where the lighting isn't too harsh, the music plays gently over the speakers and the aisles are wide and inviting.The cashiers are pleasant or at least without a criminal record. I sound like I'm being a bit hard on this No Frills, but you should seriously go have a look at these cashiers. It's where cashiers go to die, I'm sure of it. The beast that was checking me out looked to be around 65-ish. She smiles at the baby and makes baby noises at him. I stand there awkwardly. I give my obligatory remark, "Oh, do you have children?"
"Yes", she answers, "but they're all grown up." I say, "Oh that's nice."
She responds, "One is 5 and the other is 7." Whaaaaa? Unless she had some incredible fertility treatments (which something tells me she hasn't) that means that you're probably only in your 40's. Smoke another cigarette lady, it's really working for you.
In other news, Dexter is 10 months old and beyond cute. Kissing and crawling and being hilarious. It's more work now, I mean you really have to keep an eye on him instead of an eye on him and an eye on the bottle of wine, which is what I've been doing up to this point. I like to make sure that the wine is always behaving itself. Anyhow, he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth so I've had to pick up all of the bread crumbs that I leave for myself so that I don't get lost.When we were in the Domincan Republic, Dex was crawling around the floor. I see him put something in his mouth and say, "Will, he's got something in his mouth, can you please take it out?" Will puts his hand in and pulls out..... a beetle. Gross! He put a freaking beetle in his mouth! I started to freak thinking he could have some weird Domincan beetle poisoning but that wasn't the case.
A couple of weeks ago I was in The Home Depot...cruisin' for dudes. This guy who works there came up and started cooing at the baby. He says to me, "You know, you have to be careful, babies put everything in their mouth." Thanks Dr.Spock.
"I have a 2 year old, and when he was this age, he picked up a razor blade and put it in his mouth. I had to very slowly extract it, using all of my concentration."
Holy shit! First things first, Dale from Home Depot, why the hell do you have razor blades lying around your floor? Did you just happen to lose one while you were shaving, running through the living room? Were you making a pinata and had butter fingers that day? If you have razor blades lying around the floor willy nilly, yes, willy nilly, you have bigger problems than I can deal with right now....in aisle 3 at Home Depot. Honestly, what a weird story to share with a complete stranger. Anyhow, my point is, your baby may put beetles, cat food or toilet paper in their mouth but don't ever feel bad. Dale's kids are one step away from getting decapitated by a circular saw.

Roses?

First of all, I want to clear something up. Just because it's your own baby, doesn't make cleaning their shit any better. When you don't have kids, and you see someone cleaning a big turd and you curl up your nose, you often hear, "Don't worry, when it's your own, it's different." Not true. Shit is shit and it's shitty.It's just that you have no choice so you just do it and suck it up. Your own flesh and blood doesn't make poop any nicer than someone elses. It's still waste that travels through the lower intestines and comes out as a disgusting blob. SOmetimes it's more like the softserve icecream machine at McDonalds has unleashed in your kids diaper and you think, "Good God, should I take this baby to emergency? How can such a tiny human survive after such a massive expulsion?" There are many different kinds of baby poop, for those of you who are unaware.
To begin, there's the tar sands. This is the first poop that comes out of your baby and it is super sticky, black and thick, much like this guy I dated once. I believe the medical name for it is merconium but I just refer to it as rotten tar. Then comes the honey mustard. This is easier to clean than the rotten tar but has the terrifying sweet smell. Like a decaying peach. Then you move onto the Green Giant, which is exactly what it's name describes. Then the real magic happens when you start feeding your baby real food, like fruits and vegetables. This stage is actually quite facinating. This is when every shade on the colour wheel comes into play. It's like every day you get to witness a new rainbow of fruit flavours. If you're lucky, you may even get a sneak peek into the world of floopy poops, or for the lamen, diarrhea. This is a stink that will actually burn, not only your nose cilia, but your retnas as well. It starts to get worse before it gets better. I've changed the diaper of a 2 year old and that's when things seriously start to get real. There's always something to look forward to. So onto other things, I recently got fired as the spokesperson for Babies R Us. Surprised? I hadn't even mentioned that I was doing this busted ass job because I had signed this contract that forbade me from basically, well, being me. They still owe me a bunch of money so I'll save the story until I see every penny and then will regale you with hilarious tales of me, flying around Canada, going on Breakfast Television, talking about idiot baby stuff. Here's a taste of what's to come. When I was on BT in Winnipeg I had said that I would be using Dexter's "no spill" sippy cup on Christmas Eve to drink my red wine out of, so that I wouldn't spill it down my front and look like a total alcoholic. That may have been the final nail in the coffin.Ta for now!

Boom goes the dynamite

I left off with a story about our trek to the resort we stayed at in the Domincan Republic. It was the first time Will and I had done one of these all-inclusive jobs. To be honest, I sort of thought they were a bit gross before. A bunch of food, booze and Americans. I was wrong, I will admit. It was great and perfect for just simply relaxing. I love to travel but I find it hard to settle down, always needing to see everything. It's nice when you really have no choice but to sit, read and drink booze. The food was actually pretty good too. In fact, it was great. So anyhow, that's my review Travelocity.
When you left the perimeters of what was the resorts beach, there were security guards that would get you to sign out. I guess in case you get kidnapped by pirates, they know what time the resort had no legal responsibility. There was this security guard, who looked like he was maybe 20, but who knows. They all look the same to me. Security guards, that is. This guy loooooooved the baby. He came running up to us as we were walking down the beach and just started speaking Spanish to Dex and cooing and going crazy. It was really cute. He then started speaking Spanish to us. Now, having taken first year Spanish in University and scoring an impressive 58% in the course, you would be surprised to know that I can't speak Spanish. So I say, "No hable espanol." Didn't matter. He just kept talking. So he gestures for us to follow him to his chair where he keeps the clip board for people to sign out. In the meantime all of these other people were just walking by, not signing out. Ok. So we follow him and he gestures for me to sit on the chair. I sit with the baby on my lap. Will has the clipboard, signing us out. He continues to go cookoo over the baby. He's yammering on in Spanish and looking at me and laughing and I'm laughing, at what, I don't know. He may have been saying that we all look the same to him. Models, that is. Anyhow, the next thing I know, he's clucking Dex under the chin, then he swings his massive shotgun around to the front and hands it to the baby! Of course Dex goes right for the effing trigger. It all happened so fast I thought I was in a Saved By the Bell dream sequence. "Holy shit!" I say, "don't give the baby the gun!" I jump up and say, "Ok see you later! Have a good day." He continues to follow us and I just keep turning around saying "Ola, Ola,Ola", which I obviously know means "Hello" (did you already forget the 58%?) but I was so flustered that it's the only thing that was coming out of my mouth. Imagine how insane that sounded? I'm running away, clutching my baby to my chest, yelling out "Hello!Hello!Hello!" So anyhow,that was that. About 2 days later, I'm alone walking down the beach with the baby. He's there again. This time he just waves for me to come to him. I walk up to him and he starts with the baby again. He wants to hold him this time. Now I'm getting a good look at this guy. I don't know for certain, but I'm 58% sure that this dude may be slightly mentally challenged in some capacity. He's sitting down and holding up his arms to me, wanting to hold the baby. I figure it's ok, he's just a sweet man who loves the baby. I know what you're thinking, you're saying to yourself, "Oh wait Larissa, but where's the gun?" Yes, maybe I should have thought of that. As I'm handing my only child over to the stranger I realize the gun is just lying across his lap and now Dexter is in his arms and jumping on the gun. I discover this and yell, "Ola!Ola the gun!" Again with the misuse of ola. He says the only words I've heard him say in English, "No problem lady, no problem." Well, maybe I'm just a soft Canadian who has never been exposed to guns before but I'm pretty sure a 9 month old jumping on a loaded shotgun is a bit of a problem. I grab Dex, sign the stupid clipboard and take off. Then I went and drank a Banana Mama.

Is that a gun in your pants?

Happy New Year weirdos.
Will, Dexter and I went to the Domincan Republic on New Years Day for a nice week in the sun. Well, the shade really. For those of you who know my little family we are the whitest people around.SOme may even say that we're translucent. My Mom says I'm porcelin and fair, so suck on that. Will and I would come out of the shade at around 3pm. This is the time when the nightwalkers can roam in the sun without fear of complete anihilation. Anyhow, it was an amazing week and the baby loved it. The flight was a bit of a gong show but even more of a gong show was the hour and a half ride out to the resort. Dex had been ok during the flight but now it's like 10pm and he's getting super squirrly. Everyone on the bus is from Toronto and ready to get to the resort. Some skids from Milton have cracked some Canadians, butts behind their ears ready to hoser it up the moment we get to the resort. This crazy Domincan guy is on the microphone (of the greyhound) cracking really dumb jokes like this one: "I hear there's 2 feet of snow in Canada." Then he laughs really uncomfortably loud. That's the joke. Not to mention the sound system is ancient and his voice is really loud and distorted. Now the baby starts wailing. I'm holding him, well trying not to drop him (it was a really bumpy ride) and doing my best to get him to settle down. He's just getting louder and louder and now people around me are craning their necks to see how I'm torturing my baby. Here's the thing. Everyone thinks that if they were in my situation, they would be successful at getting him to calm down. I can see it in their judgemental, sympathetic stares. I'm getting frustrated as the baby is getting louder. Now amateur night at the Apollo says on the mic, "Oh tha' bebe is 'ungry." Thanks Domincan Gilligan. As a matter of fact, the baby isn't hungry but you would probably know better than me right? My blood is starting to boil and I'm getting really stressed out. This super fat guy was sitting next to Will and I can hear him say to Will, "Oh wow, she's getting really stressed out." No shit fatty, this is probably how your heart feels every minute of every day. I turn to Will and say, "I don't know what to do" and I see this sea of faces staring at me. It was like a TV show when they use the effect of peoples heads floating around to show confusion and craziness. I snapped. Now I'm effing crying. The baby is wailing, I'm bawling and fatty is shaking his chins saying, "it's ok! He's just a baby."
I mean, he was right but once the tears started, they were out there. I couldn't take them back. It was like Dexter sensed how crazy I felt because suddenly he stopped crying and passed out. Amazing. This one is short and sweet because I have to go to the airport and pick up the stroller. We left it on the sidewalk when we went to get into the Park and Fly Van. Parents of the year. Here's what's coming up next: I suffer from Tropic Thunder (if you know what I mean) a half mentally retarded security guard gives Dex his gun....twice, and Dex discovers that not everything you put in your mouth tastes like beautiful boobie nectar.