Funny face

So last night my husband and I took Brandon to the store and all the sudden he started making this hilarious face. It was seriously cracking me up. In fact I'm laughing my ass off looking at the pictures right now. When we got home he kept running around making the face so I had to get the camera out and try and capture the little wierdo. I am trying to keep up with Cheatwoods on getting action shots. She is so good at it and I started to feel like a bad mom for not capturing all the silly things that my little guy does for all of you to laugh at. So here you go enjoy my sons new funny face.

The Turkey

I totally forgot to take pictures of the whole day but I did manage to get a picture of me breaking the turkey neck so it would fit in the pan so I could make some gravy out of it. I got another picture of me trying to make stuffing and you can sort of see the turkey off to the side. Anyway everyone cleaned their plates and went back for seconds. I am pretty sure that is a great sign. Okay well enough rambling I'm going to go raid some left overs. Happy Turkey Day all.

Me and Grandpa

This is me and Grandpa Kirk. He came over to pick me up and mom thought it would be sooooo cute to dress me in a matching outfit. Grandpa thought it was pretty funny too. He loaded me up with some gum and then took me out and about for the day so mom could cook Thanksgiving dinner. I sure do love my Grandpa a lot.


And yes that is old school bubble tape that he is eating. Since the first time my dad gave it to him he is obsessed whether I like it or not.

HI GRANDMA

This is Brandon calling grandma to say hi on Thanksgiving. He got very mad when I tried to take the phone from him so I just let him talk and talk and talk. Anyway I just wanted to show how cute my little dude is.

Time out chair

This is Brandon's time out chair that great grandma Arrate got for him. Only problem is he doesn't quite understand time out so he packs it around the house looking for things to climb up and see. This morning he brought this into the living room and climbed up on the couch to poke me and jump on me.

Grannie Panties

So last week my cousin called and told me that the Gap was having an undergarment sale, a really good one. This got me excited as I could use some new panties. We rushed right up at lunch and found that all the underwear's were on sale for .97. Thats right folks ninety seven cents. Whoah man. I bought somewhere near 17 pairs. At the register I held up this one pair and I asked my cousin and the sales girl if they looked like they would be granny panties. They both replied no way. So I get them home and decide that since I'm a little iffy about them I will make them my one time of the month panties.

This is what I got stuck with, or at least something very similar



Well my time came yesterday so I pull out my new period panties and put one leg in and put the other leg in and pull them right up to my nose. Okay they didn't really go that high they really went about two inches above my belly button. WHAT. What on earth do I do with these things? So I come up with the only logical solution. I roll them down. Thats right folks I rolled. So now I'm walking around with my rolled up panties still sticking out of the back of my pants because I'm pretty sure it isn't possible to roll them down far enough to make normal size panties out of them. I feel like a complete dork here people. Oh but wait it gets better. My pants are too big this morning so I have them rolled up also.

Okay lets recap. My underwear are rolled up my waistband is rolled up, my stomach has rolls...I suck.

Weighing In

I don't understand our worlds obsession with being thin. Growing up my mother was crazy about my weight. Ha I say was like she isn't still just as obsessed. My mom bought me my first bottle of diet pills when I was 15. I loved it. I weighed about 115 pounds and I was convinced I was gross and full of fat. I was a cheerleader, I went to boxing at night and right after school I would go to the gym for about 2 hours. I couldn't work out that much now if I tried. Later after I became immune to my first brand of diet pills and I had moved on to my second I learned about puking. That was much easier and I had learned to do it so that most people didn't know. My best friend and my cousin knew and they were not happy but there wasn't much they could do. A few years later my junior year my friend and I tried taking laxatives once but that sure didn't work. At the end of high school I was a size 3-5 and I was so frustrated that I wasn't a size 1.

Fast forward to now. I moved out, quit kicking my ass at the gym and learned how to eat regularly. It was amazing how quick I gained weight and even more amazing how much I didn't seem to care. The same is not true for the rest of the world though. I had super skinny friends around me claiming to be to fat when all I could see was skin and bones. I had family telling me my ass was getting big and wondering why I had let myself go. People started giving me little hints like bringing me a salad and questioning me every time I ate something questionable like Taco Bell or some ice cream. For a long time I didn't let it get to me but after having Brandon I was very self conscious. I went on a diet limiting my calories to 1500 and the doctor told me that was unsafe because I was breast feeding. So I got a membership to the gym only I never seem to be able to make it there more then once a week. Now every day I'm hearing from my mom "did you go to the gym today?", "How many times did you work out this week?" All I feel is that I'm not quite good enough. I've always felt like my mom loved me more the skinnier I was. I was her little trophy. Look how cute my daughter is. Drives me crazy.

What started this whole blog was yesterday. I went 30 days with out eating chocolate (okay 21 because of my birthday but still) and my mom never once noticed I hadn't eaten sweets. Yesterday I started my period and I felt like shit. I decided to go grab some taco bell and some chocolate. When I was at the store they had those big candy bars on sale for a buck and i figured why not get one, have some at work and then bring it home for the rest of the week. My mom walks in the office and says to me "why do you need so much candy?" I was shocked. I was like why does it matter. I'm on my period why can't I have some? She's like well why pay for a gym if you are just going to eat chocolate? I was furious. I'm so sick of this. I don't understand why it matters how I look now. I got a membership at a gym to help my heart not to look like a high school girl. I don't care how I look. I love food. I consider myself a chef and I have a motto, "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A SKINNY CHEF." I don't mind that I don't look the way I used to or that I don't fit in the little jeans any more. So this is what I just don't get. Why is it okay for you to call me fat? I never once looked at my mom and told her that she was fat. I've never commented on her clothes or her hair like she does to me. I've never done that to the people who do this to me. I wonder how those people would feel if just once I said how fat they were. If once I said that they should do something with their hair because they look like crap. Maybe I should tell the next person who wants to criticize my weight that they need a nose job or something like that. Maybe then they will understand every single day how it feels to be me. Why can't people just accept that some people are just happy being happy. I have a husband who is amazing, a beautiful son, two houses, a great job and so on and I did it all as a fat ass. But you know what I'm happy. When I diet and I don't eat I become a huge jerk. I love food. Food makes me happy. I love to cook it and experiment with it and try new things. So leave me alone. If you see me walking down the street leave me alone. Let me be fat. Let me enjoy my family and my food and my jiggly butt. Just remember we all have insecurities and pointing out mine may make you feel better but I promise someday someone will call you on yours and you will see how it feels to be me. I'm not going to be compassionate either. I'm just going to sit back and laugh.

A very very bad idea for moms

You know back in my younger days I used to love my low slung jeans. I had a pretty cute butt then so I didn't mind when I bent over and you saw a little of it. Then I grew up got a real ass and bought better pants and a super belt. No more bending over and seeing my butt, or as I call it my jiggly fat. No more spare skin tire rolling out over the top of my jeans. I was now stuffed safely inside my big girl pants and strapped in extra tight with my jumbo wumbo belt. I've done pretty good lately about buying normal pants but sometimes when I'm in a hurry at the store I just grab my size and go. Sometimes low pants are still cute with the right shirt for a night out or something. However they are NOT GOOD FOR MOMS. This morning I was in a hurry so I ran in my closet and grabbed the first jeans I saw. I noticed they were a little low but didn't have the patience to bother with belt loops. So I got the bight idea of putting on a longer shirt. I was out the door in no time. I arrive at work to discover my long shirt is only considered long with normal jeans. Okay fine. I'll just keep my butt in my chair all day and no one will notice, right. WRONG! When my son finally took a nap I figured now was a good time to pick up all the color crayons off the floor. OOOPS. thats right I'm down on my hands and knees with my granny panties sprawling out of my pants for everyone to see and my butt crack (am I allowed to say butt crack on here?) peaking out of those. It was mortifying. I ran over and closed my office door and scurried around trying to find all the rest of the Crayola's and then planted my butt back in my chair. THIS IS WHY IT IS A BAD IDEA FOR MOMS TO BUY LOW JEANS AND AN EVEN WORSE IDEA FOR MOMS TO FORGET THEIR BELT.



Never forget your belt moms. In fact just go buy enough belts for all your jeans so they are pre-looped and you don't even have to make an effort in the morning.

FUNNY FARTING KIDS

SO MY THREE YEAR OLD NIECE MAZZIE IS AT MY WORK TODAY PLAYING WITH MY SON. ALL THE SUDDEN MY OFFICE STARTED TO SMELL LIKE POOP REALLY BAD. SO I PICKED UP THE BOY AND SNIFFED HIS BUTT AND IT WASN'T HIM. SO I ASK HER IF SHE HAS TO GO POTTY AND SHE SAYS NO. I WALK AWAY AND THE SMELL IS STILL THERE. THIS IS HOW THE CONVERSATION WENT

SHANNON: MAZZIE DID YOU POOP

MAZZIE: NO

SHANNON: ARE YOU SURE, CAN I CHECK

MAZZIE: OKAY

SHANNON: CHECKS, SURE ENOUGH NO POOP

SHANNON: DID YOU FART

MAZZIE: YES GOSH

SHANNON: YOU SHOULD SAY EXCUSE ME WHEN YOU DO THAT

MAZZIE: NO AH YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO TELL

SHANNON: HA HA HA HA HA

THIS WAS SOOOO FUNNY. BECAUSE I GUESS SHE IS RIGHT HUH.

I NEED HELP MOMS

Okay it is time for me to tell you all my dirty little secret. My son is 15.5 months old and I'm still nursing. Shhhhhh gosh I can hear your screams of horror all the way from here. Hang on let me put some cotton in my ears....Okay I'm back. Okay so up until 24 hours ago I was a full time nursing mom. This isn't all my fault. Okay its mostly my fault. While I was pregnant I listened to people rant and rave about the wonders of breastfeeding. How much money I would save on formula, how wonderful it is for my child and so on. So since I'm super insane mom who takes everything to extremes I decided that not only was breast feeding best feeding it was only feeding. Don't get me wrong, occasionally I would pump and let my husband use a bottle but then I heard those little voices of the leche nurses in my head screaming "nipple confusion, dry up and so on." Aside from all this my son was very ummm how do I say this, he was an independent thinker. When he was two weeks old the doctor advised me that if this kid was going to ever take a bottle or a pacifier I would have to introduce it then because he was going to be very picky, determined and in control. Well I never gave him a pacifier because I've heard so much bad about it and I barely gave him the bottle and guess what? My son became a boob man. He pulls my shirt down in public he squeezes my moms boobs to tell her to take him to me and so on. There is another side to this though. I LOVED NURSING. It was the most intimate special bonding time with my son. He really had no where else to look but right up into my eyes and I never got sick of looking right back at him. It was like at those moments I knew that I was nourishing my son and I was helping him in a way only a mother could. I was protecting him fro allergies, and making him a better reader and keeping him 100% organic (minus that one Krispy Kreme my dad gave him at two months).

Anyway now on to the real problem at hand. I haven't nursed in 24 hours. Yes I finally decided I was done nursing. But now my boobs feel like two giant cantaloupes stuffed in a bra.



I don't know what to do. I woke up this morning leaking milk and feeling like my boob was going to blow up. Don't even get me started on how I felt when I tried to put on a bra. I'm pretty sure I have a giant boulder lodged in my boob.



So here is what I need. I need some advice on what I can really do to make this stop. I returned my pump already but I'm pretty sure pumping wouldn't help because I would just keep producing milk. I have heard the old wives tale about cabbage leaves but come on people I work full time around a bunch of guys I can't go to work with cabbage in my boobs.



So please send your advice before this happens to me.