Rachel Callahan

The End of the Sucking Saga.

August 1, 2010 Rachel Callahan I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Kids: The Experience., Parent of the Year

So. Remember my deepest, darkest, Mommy secret?

And my failed past attempts to take away Ali’s Ring of Mordor?

***Cringing in shame***

Yes, indeed, I have not been brave enough to finally pull the plug, as it were, on my 3 1/2 year old’s halfway-through-the-nap-paci-getting habits.

But fortunately, if I’m not brave enough to deal with it, Ali is.

It all started a week ago.

Ali has a very long-standing tradition of rooting around in my makeup drawers and admiring them all while I get ready. Last Friday, she dug further into a drawer than she’d ever gone before, and randomly found an old paci – one from when she was a baby.

“Mommy! Look at this old paci! It’s dirty and yucky and old!! Can I throw it away?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

(Pause, thinking about throwing in a life lesson…)

“You know, you’re a big girl now…at some point you’re going to have to throw away YOUR paci too.”

(Silence.)

(Then an odd excitement arose in her spirit…)

“Okay!!!!! I’ll go get it!!”

She runs away, and I jerk in shock.

Is she really going to throw it away?

And if so, will it end her gift of 3+ hour napping?

Should I let her?

(Of course you should, you idiot! She’s three and a half!!!)

Okay..okay..I can handle this. Breathe…

She runs back in the room.

“I threw them away!! Where can I find MORE pacis to throw away???”

“Now you know since you threw it away, if you wake up in your nap, you won’t be able to get one.”

“Oh…”

“So if you wake up and cry, you have to go back to sleep without a paci. Will you do that?”

“I will! I will!”

She’s totally calm about this.

Me? Panicking.

I mean, OBVIOUSLY I want my kid to give up her paci. But I don’t want to have to compromise naptime to get it, or I’ll never work, or blog, or do the dishes, or the laundry…ever, ever, again.

And WAY too many people commented on my paci admission post about their own horror stories of naps dramatically shortening or even (should I type it aloud) ending altogether after the paci went away.

Yes, there was no doubt that the paci in the trashcan hauntingly forbode a tragic ending with me being on Hoarders: Buried Alive because of the ten foot pile of dirty dishes and clothes and unwritten blog posts littering my house.

But I knew deep down that it was time for me to be a big girl. I CAN live without a paci. I am 28 years old, after all.

That day at naptime, I approached with fear and trembling. She woke up twice instead of her traditional one mid-nap-cry, and although it took me a few minutes to get her calmed down without the use of a sucking device, she did, indeed, go back to sleep.

Obviously, I am a horrible wuss of a mother who waited too long to do this.

Good thing Ali is braver than I am.

Sure enough, for the rest of the week, she did great – napping as good as ever, and only mentioning her former friend The Paci a couple of times, but in a past-tense-fond-memory sort of way – “back when I was a baby”.

So, it’s time for me to come to accept it, too: She’s really not a baby anymore.

Good thing I’m having another one, or I might actually get a bit verklempt…

Now pardon me while I go find a box of Kleenex.

YooHoo Friends Giveaway: Milly The Pinkest Kitten.

July 30, 2010 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests

Ashley and I took Ali and AJ to the mall the other day, and while we were there, let them enjoy their traditional play time at the toy store.

Of course, as they always do, they immediately went for the YooHoo and Friends display first, and began playing with all of the different adorable and furry creatures. There’s something magnetizing about all of their cuteness, for sure!

YooHoo and friends are made by Aurora World Inc., who just released a new and super-girly friend: Milly, The Pinkest Kitten:

The super-soft and cute Milly comes several different varieties, all certain to thrill any little girly-girl.

Milly Wannabes are dressed as a Princess, Fairy, or Ballerina, Milly Birthday Girls are holding a cupcake or a balloon, and Milly Cupcake Carriers come with their own scented basket to carry Milly around in:

All of these can be bought in Aurora’s gift shop.

If you would like to win one of two of these adorable pets for a girly-girl in your life, simply comment here to enter!

You can earn up to four extra entries if you:

Become a fan of Yoohoo and friends on Facebook or Twitter

Subscribe to OR Follow my blog

Follow me on Twitter OR Facebook

Tweet, blog, OR Facebook about this giveaway

(be sure to leave separate comments for your extra entries.)

Best of luck! This giveaway is open until Monday, August 9th. The winner will be randomly selected and posted on my giveaway winners page on Tuesday, August 10th.

Disclosure: I received a review product for this giveaway. I did not receive any other compensation for this giveaway, and my opinions are always my own.

The First Step is Admitting That I Have a Problem.

July 28, 2010 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Anal Retentivity to a Fault, I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Newsflash, Weird Strange and True

If you are a Mom like me that has found quite a bit of lethargic pleasure in renewing your love of coloring thanks to having a coloring-aged-kid (even if you are also, like me, a serial crayon breaker), THEN YOU MUST GO TO TARGET RIGHT NOW. You have no idea the level of satisfaction – nay, ecstasy – that awaits you.

In their school supplies section, Target has these awesome pocket folders in various designs at the very-affordable-for-the-hours-of-~~obsession~~-entertainment-they-will-bring-you-price of 2 for $1.50:

Not only are the designs totally coloring ready,

but the texture of that hard, slick, thick cardstock colored on with a pack of Crayola skinny markers is simply and indescribably glorious.

You just might spend two days, coloring feverishly, until your folder looks like this:

And you put down your obsession for a time (to do things like feed your child, do the laundry, and bathe), even though you can hear back side of the folder, calling your name and beckoning you to come enjoy your coloring pleasure…

And even the inside flaps.

But alas, you need to let your bruised marker-holding-finger rest.

The best part of this addiction is (unlike my last addiction of the Angry Birds iPhone game which HAS to be the most addictive app substance on the planet), your kid will THINK you’re doing all of this coloring to spend time with them, and will be glad to color with you:

And your husband may even join in the fun:

But, of course, your coloring needs may last much longer than said child or husband’s, so husband will go back to playing Angry Birds (because it takes husbands longer to beat the game than it does us wives), and your child will entertain herself with other things, like trashing the entire house…

Or working on subliminal messages…

(No, that doesn’t say “Bad Mommy”. . . . it says “Daddy Mommy” – it’s just that two of the D’s are stacked.)

(I hope.)

So. Go. Now. Fulfill your destiny as a colorer. And if you don’t already have them, pick up a pack of skinny Crayola Markers while you’re there. You’ll thank me later…with your bruised fingers.

NO, this post was NOT sponsored by Target or Crayola. Just by my bruised fingers.

The Lion of Her Skirt: Case Closed.

July 27, 2010 Rachel Callahan Kids: The Experience., Mystery Solved, Weird Strange and True

I really thought we would never solve the mystery.

But, since every child’s goal is to be as entirely unpredictable as possible, it was solved in less than 24 hours of my post.

My parents stopped by on Monday for a little while (apparently they were going through Grandkid withdrawals), and since they had read my blog post the day before, they asked Ali about it.

(I rolled my eyes at their naivete, seeing as how I had already thoroughly interrogated my child on multiple occasions.)

“Is Daddy the Lion of your Skirt?”

“Yes! He IS the Lion of my Skirt!!”

“But what does that mean?”

And then, in the exact same exasperating way that Ali walked for the first time for them, despite our months of desperate attempts and in-depth training that she completely ignored, she gave a perfectly clear and precise response.

“Because sometimes, he takes my skirt, and puts it on his head, and pretends to be a lion.”

As she said this, a vague memory surfaced in my mind…one night, about a month ago, during play-before-bedtime, Chris took Ali’s beloved Tutu,

and placed it around his face, giving him a full head AND mane of sparkling tutu hair, and proceeded to pretend to be … a lion.

Roar.

Her Daddy is, indeed, the Lion of her Skirt.

The Possible Dawn of the SUVan?

July 26, 2010 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Pregnancy: The Psychoses., Survey Says. . .

About a year ago, I wrote an open letter to all car manufacturers.

I asked for something that didn’t yet exist, but that was desperately needed for us new (and somewhat egotistical) generation of Moms – an SUVan.

Just like those that grew up in station wagons didn’t want to buy a station wagon when they became Moms (hence the rise of the Minivan), many of those of us who grew up in minivans shudder at the thought of owning one ourselves.

I know that not everyone feels this way, and I have the utmost respect for those who can rise above the minivan-gag-reflex (because the minivan, without question, most definitely has amazing superpowers that I am positively jealous of), but I am sure that I personally would instantaneously age by 10 years the day I drove a minivan off the showroom floor.

(Although does ANYONE actually drive a car off the showroom floor? It seems rather fraught with liability issues on the car dealership’s part…but it sounds really exciting.)

ANYWAY, just when I thought that none of those car manufacturers paid me ANY attention at all (a terrible tragedy of injustice), a new automobile started to catch my eye: The Ford Flex.

The Flex seems to have everything I requested in my letter: low to the ground like a minivan but without losing the definitive shape of an SUV, a minivan-length interior, and a definite edge to it that would make me feel like I was not compromising my anti-minivan convictions.

Granted, I’m not typically a Ford-Type girl (I tend to be attracted to the Honda/Toyota types), but if Ford is the only one that pays attention to me, well, flattery gets you everywhere.

Maybe all of this car interest is because I’m finally nesting. After all, a Mom’s nest-on-wheels is quite as important as her nest-at-home.

And, Chris can’t really get onto me for nesting, because he is absolutely overcome with nesting-for-his-male-child plans, and has already given me a schedule of which I must make room-decor decisions so that he can paint the walls of the nursery for me before the full advent of football season.

So, I mentioned my newfound interest to Chris, who, unbeknownst to me, had also been paying attention to the Flex – because he found them to be quite the most ghastly new car on the road.

Oh.

And I realized: This is the type of vehicle that is so new and so different than anything else out there that it is bound to be polarizing. Everyone is going to hate it or love it.

So what do you think? Hate or Love?

Is it the answer to those of us who quest for a Non-Minivan Minivan?

Don’t worry about my feelings – I’m certainly not buying one anytime soon.

(Unless Chris pushes me too much on that room decor schedule…)

I’m thinking a nice Mediterranean Blue would be nice:

Although I think Ali would have other plans:

Okay. Besides the Fuchsia, love it or hate it? Cast your vote – after all, it might help shape the further revolution of the SUVan.

A Peel Off The Old Onion.

July 25, 2010May 17, 2011 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Do You Know? Because I Don't., Kids: The Experience., Quirky quirky quirkiness

Chris is known for his deep and sometimes murky analogies. They’re easy to get lost in, but if you find your way through their maze, you will find yourself stunned at their depth, and at how all of a sudden, they can actually make sense.

I like watching faces when he periodically teaches our Sunday School class – counting how many what-in-the-world-is-he-talking-about looks versus the wow-he-is-soo-deep-and-right faces, and watching them change back and forth…repeatedly.

His most famous (and made fun of) analogy is most definitely The Onion of Purity.

Although it made perfect sense to me (maybe that’s why he married me), our entire small group was completely and utterly befuddled by it, and never cease to tease him about his complex onion.

(Although some of them DID say that it made more sense after I translated it for them.)

(Maybe THAT’S why he married me.)

Anyway, it appears that Ali has inherited her Father’s gene for deep analogies, but her ability to explain them has not, however, grown in yet.

(Nor has my ability to interpret them.)

Ali walked up to Chris and, in the most I’m-telling-you-something-so-loving-and-genuine-that-it-will-change-your-life voice, said,

“Daddy, You’re the Lion of my Skirt.”

Chris thought he misinterpreted her three year old enunciation.

“What, baby?”

With loving and adoring eyes, she repeated, “You’re the LION of my Skirt!”

“I’m the Lion of your skirt?”

“Yes, that’s right. You ARE!!”

He looked down at the shorts she was wearing…. “Huh?”

“You know…you’re the lion of my skirt.”

Later, we asked her to elaborate…

“What does it mean that Daddy is the Lion of your Skirt?”

“It means that he just IS the Lion of my Skirt.”

“Right. What does that mean?”

“It means he’s the Lion. Of my Skirt.”

“That’s…so sweet, honey.”

I think they need to go ahead and let her start teaching Sunday School right away.

This Mystery was solved and written about in this follow-up post.

Inescapably Incompatible.

July 23, 2010 Rachel Callahan Boy Child = Bizarre., Utter Silliness

Dear Grandfathers of Newbie,

In our child naming process, we both recognized that it was somewhat of a family tradition to name male children after their Grandfathers. You both did it with at least one of your sons, and I’m sure that you would have loved a Grandson to be named after you. And after all, we love and respect you both, and would be honored to pass that on through a naming homage.

And, although I know that you are both fairly easygoing Granddads, I wanted to give some sort of explanation as to why we didn’t represent you in the naming of our son.

(Granted, Dad, I know that James is one of your overly-ambitious count of THREE names, but every male in our family has the name James, so I figured you weren’t too touched by that gesture.)

Now. Back to your names.

You see, there was a problem.

You’re simply not compatible as Grandfathers.

If we had chosen each of your middle names as homage to you, our son would have been lucky enough to be named…Michael Vic.

At least he would lose the “k” at the end, but it’s certain that people would still think of a dog-torturing football player every time they laid eyes on our son, instead of how amazingly adorable he will surely be.

But an even worse option would have been to combine your first names.

That’s right, our son would have been lucky enough to possess the double whammy of ALL boy names.

The be all and end all of cruelty in parenting.

The Big Kahuna, if you will.

He would have been…Peter Richard.

And no one needs to start off in life with a “Kick Me” sign on their back THAT big.

So I do hope that you understand our choices, and understand that it wasn’t us, it was you.

Sincerely,

Rachel, Chris, and a much happierly named Noah.

Turn Your Photos Into Masterpieces – Giveaway!

July 22, 2010 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests

I’m addicted to my camera, if you haven’t noticed. I love trying to capture the moments of our everyday lives. And, although of course the quality of my pictures doesn’t come close, the expressions and “naturalness” of my photos are often much better than would be captured in a photo studio, mainly because my kid is always going to be more comfortable with me than any photographer.

So, I take my pictures, then I use my minimal Photoshop talents to try and “fix” my lack of photography skills, which some may argue just mess them up more.

So I was pretty excited when I heard the idea behind a new site called Editingg: with very easy user interface and affordable pricing, they will take your home photos and make them look like they were professionally made.

They can remove distracting objects, blur the backgrounds to make the foreground stand out more prominently, deblur a photo, touchup and enhance faces, and in general make those edits that really make your photo stand out.

They have three levels of service – Basic for $6.99, Premium for $14.99, and Advanced for $24.99, depending on what you want done to your photo. After editing, they just send the photo file back to you, and it is yours to print or publish as you like with no copyrights involved, unlike professional photography.

Editingg has given me two packages of 5 Premium edits each to give away to two of you!!! Each package is worth $75, and is a great way to enhance your photos.

To show their capabilities, they took a few of my photos and worked their magic.

I loved this photo, but it is washed out and the background is too prominent:

When I tried to edit it myself, I ended up over-exposing Ali’s face by over-brightening the picture:

Editingg took the photo and made it perfectly balanced: a faded out background, Ali’s eyes bright, and her coloring as it naturally should be.

This family photo was taken of us at Easter, but it was very shadowy. No matter how hard I tried to edit it, I couldn’t get rid of the shadows without messing something else up:

I LOVE the version from Editingg – SUCH an improvement!!

I’ve always loved this pose and expression on Ali, but my refrigerator and messy dining room table always stood out to me more than Ali:

Editingg blurred the background, fixed the coloring, and made her image stand out much more prominently:

I’m really impressed with their work, and know you will be too!!!

If you would like to win one of two packages of 5 photo edits from Editingg, simply comment here to enter!

You can earn up to four extra entries if you:

Follow Editingg on Twitter
Tweet, blog, OR Facebook about this giveaway. If you tweet, please tweet the following: “I just entered to win free professional photo touchups from @editingg! http://bit.ly/editingg “
Subscribe to OR Follow my blog
Follow me on Twitter OR Facebook

(be sure to leave separate comments for your extra entries.)

Best of luck! This giveaway is open until Monday, August 2nd. The two winners will be randomly selected and posted on my giveaway winners page on Tuesday, August 3rd.

Disclosure: Editingg edited four photos for me for review purposes. I received no other compensation for this giveaway. As always, my opinions are always my own.

If Only I Could Have Put a Bag Over That Bag Over My Head…

July 20, 2010 Rachel Callahan Football and I have a Complicated Relationship, I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Just My Luck, Storytime

Here in Alabama, certain seasons change a lot quicker than the rest of the country.

For instance, our summers usually begin somewhere around late February….and football season begins somewhere in May.

Okay, maybe not for everyone, but Chris most definitely starts his preparations and excitement at the beginning of the summer…as if he can already smell the field paint and hear the Million Dollar Band.

Last year, his preparations began in May, when he began feverishly planning his new “state of the art” satellite system, which he finished in August.

This year, since he already has his satellite system, he’s not had nearly the outlet for his football energy, but, rest assured, it’s always on his mind.

(That is, when he’s not full-on nesting for his upcoming boy child…which is also getting quite out of hand. But I digress.)

Anyway, all of the football talk has had me reminiscing back to my Junior High days…

The Junior High group at our Church always had a big Alabama / Auburn party, and would have prizes for the best dressed attendee representing each team.

The idea of prizes sounded good to my seventh grade self (forgetting for a second that prizes bought to please a crowd of 75 junior highers rarely pleased any one particular junior higher), and so I asked Mom to help make me a costume.

At that point in my life, I’d probably never watched a single football game, but team spirit doesn’t always have to be about spirit, right?

So Mom, always up for a crafty challenge, had the perfect idea: make me into a giant, junior-higher-sized pom-pom.

That sounded like it would get me a prize, so I agreed.

We bought crepe paper rolls of red and white, gathered up a couple of now-obsolete brown paper grocery sacks, and set to work.

We spent countless hours gluing alternating red and white strips onto the two grocery sacks in heaps of shaking goodness, then fashioned one of the creations into a shirt, and the other into a headpiece that would put Cousin Itt himself to shame. We paired it with some red and white striped pants, and the stunningly dizzying outfit was complete.

The end result looked like the love child of Elmo and Barkley:

(Although I searched tirelessly, there are no pictures to document the actual outfit, most likely because there are very few pictures of me in the seventh grade, due to a raging awkward stage that my parents were merciful enough to only minimally record.)

We finished it mere minutes before it was time to leave for the party, and as I was trying it on, I remembered a very important fact about myself:

I despised – no HATED with every fiber of my twelve year old body – any and all attention on myself – especially in a large group of peers in which I was decisively NOT one of the cool kids.

And I panicked.

I told Mom I couldn’t do it – I just wouldn’t dress up.

And Mom panicked.

No WAY was she going to let me not go through with this – not after our long, hard hours of work, gluing each individual shaker petal on.

I begged.

I pleaded.

I promised to wash the toilet every day for the rest of my life.

No luck. With a cruelty that only a Junior Higher has the emotional capacity to feel, she made me wear it.

I walked into that room, shoulders drooping under my layers of streamers, and, as I feared, every head in the room turned.

There were no other gigantic pom-poms in attendance that night, and I most certainly stood out from the crowd of Cheerleaders and Football Players much like Cady Heron’s Zombie Bride moment in Mean Girls:
I hid in the bathroom as long as I could, and snuck in as the program started, taking the last seat on the back row.

As our Junior High director began the buildup to the winners of the costume contest, I began my prayers. Surely they’d be more effective since I was at church, right?

“Dear God, please let there be a huge injustice in the judging. Please let him play favorites. Anything. Please, please, PLEASE just don’t let me win. Don’t make me walk to the front of that room and have to stand in front of this entire group. Please. Make me invisible!!”

Of course, my prayers were for naught. I won that grand prize of useless football-themed crap and was clearly identified as the freak behind the pom-pom for anyone who was still unsure as to my identity, and bore the shame of the dreaded spotlight of attention being on my very, very awkward self.

And that, my friends, might very well explain my extremely complicated relationship with the sport of football.

Whirlwinds.

July 19, 2010 Rachel Callahan Blogher, I'm a Blog Geek, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, It's Tough Being a Girl, Newsflash, Pregnancy: The Psychoses.

So, last week.

I’m still trying to catch my breath from it all…

…returning from vacation and trying to get caught up on everything under the sun…

…finding out that I was going to be a Mom of a BOY child…

…picking out a name for said boy child much quicker than we anticipated…

…my dear husband’s birthday (which, by the way, I had his permission to spend the whole weekend celebrating his birthday with him rather than using it to write him an ooey gooey birthday post. But if you feel cheated by that, you can always read last year’s.)…

And, in the midst of all of that, I was also frantically trying to pull 67 tiny details together to be able to go to New York City in three weeks for Blogher!!

I know, I said last year that I would probably not go again this year, but…

I guess the “probably” caught up with me.

Here’s my official excuse list. You see….I got invited to an event at Ralph Lauren that I really wanted to attend, plus I got a partial sponsorship to pay for my trip, plus I’ve really been itching to fly off to a grand adventure one more time before I’m a) too huge to be allowed to fly, or b) the Mom of two kids.

Plus, as a really exciting bonus, I might get to have one of my best friends accompany me on the trip, AND one of our best friends who moved to New York last year might get to meet us and hang out with us, turning the trip into the absolute perfection of a girl’s weekend.

Which, by the way, if my friend CAN’T come, then I’m going to have a problem.

You see, I really want to wear a dress that I already have to the event I’m going to – it still fits, ThanksToReallyStretchyMaterial, but there is no POSSIBLE way that I can zip it up myself. Seriously – it needs a level torque that I just can’t obtain with my arms twisted behind my back.

(And believe me, I’ve tried.)

So, if my friend doesn’t come, I’m either stuck with

a) going to a Ralph Lauren cocktail party with an unzipped dress,

b) ordering room service and saying, “Thanks for the nifty little ketchup bottle. Oh, by the way, can you catch that zipper for me?”,

c) walking three blocks to the main Blogher hotel (with an unzipped dress), tracking down one of my blogging friends who happens to not be at an event of her own (still with an unzipped dress), and asking her to zip me up,

d) buying a new dress (of which, I don’t think I could take the horror of trying to find ANOTHER dress that looks halfway decent on my halfway to delivering a baby body.)

So, if any of you ladies out there are going to be in Manhattan on Thursday, August 5th, and could possibly zip me into my not-made-for-a-nearly-20-week-pregnant-woman dress, I’d really love to jot you down into my itinerary is Dress-Zipping-Up-Back-Up-Plan.

Oh – and while you’re zipping me up, maybe if you could just pray over that zipper so it won’t pop while I’m at Ralph Lauren – that’d be great.