crackberry, explained.

Rinn with Blackberry.

Rinn without Blackberry.

Strange, my reaction is eerily similar.

I must be dreaming

I’m obsessed with decoding my dreams.  If someone was to check my Blackberry first thing in the morning, they would discover that my search history is ridden with dream dictionary sites, a few of which I’ve taken the time to bookmark.  I rarely read my horoscope unless I come across it when perusing Elle; instead I rely totally on my subconscious to show me my fate. So as you can see, this simply isn’t something that can just wait till morning. 

Last night I had a dream that Rinn (in his current state) walked up to me, removed his diaper and pissed all over me.   The kid won’t even crawl yet so of course I found myself desperately groping for my phone in the middle of the night.  DreamMoods.com said the following:

“To dream that someone is urinating on you means that you are feeling the emotional burden of this person.”

Way to tell it like it is DeamMoods.com. But I love Rinn’s emotional burden so if we can find a different way for my subconscious to convey this message to me rather than by way of a golden shower from my baby, it would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. I should mention that sometimes I overdo it on my medication (you know, you take your pill in the morning, forget, so you accidently take a second with dinner.) In those instances I just accept that my dreams are wild hallucinations. I enjoy the ride and try not to read too much into it. 

If my dream is life changing I'll tweet: @RebeccaRinn

freaky friday

Some might say that all of these pictures of Rinn and I wearing coordinating outfits will one day scare away all potential girlfriends. I am counting on that. 

(Me: dress, Express; sunglasses, Jessica Simpson. Rinn: tank, babyGAP; shorts, Old Navy; shoes, Circo.)

Also, this was the day I attempted a low-carb diet for all of 8 hours. Then I went to a kids birthday party where they had a nacho bar. Need I say more?

And for my next trick, I will attempt to coordinate Rinn with the following:

move it, move it.

We are moving this weekend for two reasons; cheaper rent and more closet space.  I am tired of the monthly heart palpitations that follow writing out our rent check and it would be nice to use our kitchen pantry for things other than storing my purses and winter boots, like, you know, food.  Oh and our downstairs neighbor enjoys smoking cigarettes on the patio, in his underoos. He’s not terribly unfortunate looking but it’s still awkward. Also, he is dating a Kate Goselin doppelganger and it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to attack her reverse mullet with my kitchen scissors. 

Which brings me to, packing; a necessary evil of which there is a laundry list of things I would rather do than put my shit, in an organized fashion, in boxes.  My hate for packing started in college when having to sit down and put together a suit case for regular trips home interfered with my daily plans of binge drinking and going to the beach.  Either I packed just minutes before I was supposed to be at the airport or while pre-gaming; alternating between chugging Keystones and throwing things in a suitcase.  On more than one occasion I would get to my destination only to discover that I had packed just one shoe, a swimsuit top, my electric can opener, and a sweatshirt. This could go in the complete opposite direction of course, as demonstrated when my family vacationed in Mexico and I packed no less than 9 pairs of shoes and enough outfits for a month-long hiatus. 

Moving when you’re single is bad enough, now there are three of us; but considering Rinn is roughly 1/8^th the size of your average adult, one would think he’d have 1/8^th the amount of stuff. That correlation is simply not true; babies have a ton of shit. I really don’t want to pack that shit, or any shit so being the professional procrastinator that I am, I decided my time would be better spent recording all the things I would rather do then pack. Enjoy.

Things I would rather do than pack:

1. Hug a cactus.
2. Wear Birkenstocks with socks.
3. Listen to Nickelback’s All the Right Reasons album while getting a brazillian.
4. Post my social security number on my blog and undoubtedly face identity theft. (Actually that might not be a bad idea, the thief would probably raise my credit score.)
5. Eat dryer lint.
6. Have my face eaten off by a homeless man on bath salts. Too soon?
7. Use a Neti Pot with boiling water.
8. Shave my legs using only my teeth.
9. Let Courtney Love babysit my child.
10. Check baggage.
11. Vacation in Guantanamo Bay.
12. Watch a Ghost Hunters marathon with my husband.
13. Get a tooth pulled, with no Novocain.
14. Make out with a dingo.
15.  Swallow push pins.
16. Cut off both of my thumbs, with a spoon.
17. Watch as William Hung and Rebecca Black record a duet.
18. Eat a pack of cold hot dogs.
19. Send all my clothes through a wood chipper.
20. Go on a date with Todd Akin.

I do, however, very much enjoy this song about moving it:

Side note: I read this list to my husband and he said two things: “I knew you liked GhostHunters.” (I’ll have to remember to go over the meaning of sarcasm with him.) And “We would move less if we just bought a house.” In the last year I’ve undertook an eighteen-year minimum responsibility to a child (we all know it’s more like a lifetime) and married a man till death shall do us part.  Investing a long term real estate purchase is just not a commitment I’m willing to make at this point so to hell with it, bring on the boxes.

Tweets: @RebeccaRinn

Pins: pinterest.com/rarinnbon

baby vs. book club

As a stay-at-home mom of a child whose only communication tool is baby babble, you tend to crave conversation.  Conversation that extends beyond the response to “paper or plastic?” and “do you want sauce with that?”

In a desperate attempt to corral a group of friends on a regular basis, I suggested a Book Club.  We always joke that we used to be/have fun and the fact that we committed to an organized group that would discuss literature rather than RSVP’ing to those ever popular “girls nights” solidifies the fact that we are probably lame, and definitely old.   Someone brings wine. Someone brings beer. And someone brings doughnuts to soak up the alcohol so Book Club doesn’t turn into a scene from Magic Mike. We sit around talking about waxing, Miley Cyrus’ haircut and other things that are incredibly inappropriate, and occassionally illegal.  Oh, and the book, we definitely (cough) talk about the book.

When it’s my turn to host I plop Rinn in his twice-recalled Bumbo seat, give him something that is relatively safe to put in his mouth and then hit the bottle.  What? Of course I still use my Bumbo. It’s stamped right on the damn chair “WARNING – Prevent Falls: Never use on any elevated surface” so no, I don’t put Rinn in it on top of the refridgerator and then leave the house to run a few errands counting on the Bumbo as a reliable babysitter.  Then again I am drinking, KIDDING!

My biggest fear doesn’t revolve around a skull fracture from my lack of common sense but rather that babies, Rinn in particular, are more aware of their surroundings than I give them credit for. I’m referencing those times when our discussions trail off into the areas of inappropriate and illegal that I mentioned earlier.  Sure he looks completely enraptured with shoving a plastic pig into his mouth but maybe he’s incredibly cunning and intently listening to every word, the proverbial fly on the wall so to speak, or in this case, Bumbo seat.   We will be having an argument some 16 years down the road about whether or not he can use the car to take some tramp to Culver’s for a milkshake and before I can give him my definitive “NO”, he will look at me in an eerie and allknowing manner and mouth the words “Book Club.” To which I will have no choice but to bow my head in shame and hand him the keys.

I’m already going to have a lot to answer to if remnants of my former blog somehow surface; so in an effort to prevent any additional blackmail by a 16-year-old of my own creation, I have thought about replacing his bedroom door with one that locks from the outside and stashing him there while we gossip more than a copy of US Weekly. My parents did it to me for a number of years because at 5 years old, I had the habit of getting up in the middle of the night and wandering the neighborhood with the family labrador in tow.  But I’m still not sure I’m left entirely undamaged from being imprisoned against my will for all those years so…

Does anyone know where to buy baby earmuffs? 

Rinn starting his own book club. 

I told him he has to wait until he's at least 12 before he can serve up wine spritzers at his meetings.


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Bond, James Bond

"Martini - shaken not stirred."


Follow Me, and Rinn: @RebeccaRinn

Get your own:

blues baby

In my mind, Rinn is the new face of Ray-Ban. In reality, I am crafty with photoshop and a picture of Rinn wearing his Ray-Ban Junior Wayfarers. 

(Disclaimer: Let’s just assume that whatever needs to be printed here so that I don’t get sued by Ray-Ban or any of its affiliates over the use of their logo and their “Never Hide” ad campaign is actually printed here.  I’m a stay-at-home mom with too much time on her hands and an imagination that runs a bit wild sometimes and I’m pretty sure this falls under the Fair Use doctorine. Let’s not get legal.)

I Tweet: @RebeccaRinn

Look as cool as Rinn:

Confessions of a Shopaholic

To introduce my following post, I’ve elected to provide you with a PG-13 excerpt from my previous blog. It’s one of the few that didn’t, at some point, cross over into the pornographic or detail, in the graphic sense, my gross problem with binge drinking. My then-boyfriend, now-husband (weird how that works) had just insulted my entire wardrobe by saying “[my] closet could double as a Halloween Express.” With that said:

“Sure I had an outfit specifically purchased for picnicking, a dress that would put the Chiquita Banana lady out of business and sequin-covered leggings that caused elderly women to purr in my direction and gave me the need to unnecessarily jive in public places, but I didn’t own a cowboy hat, anything that resembled animal ears or a feather boa. So I have made a few eccentric choices regarding the contents of my closet: specifically the patent leather pants I wore nearly once a week my entire sophomore year of high school, a seafoam-colored dress that could’ve passed as the offspring of Sesame Street’s Big Bird and the fact that I still own the leotard I used to be a French women for Halloween last year. 75% of what resides on hangers is constructed of animal print, faux fur or anything that has a remote shimmer to it. It’s like I had been going for unconventional but took a wrong turn somewhere around the land of Las Vegas showgirls and ended up with what resembles the bridesmaid ensemble closet from 27 Dresses.”

Now that you have a firm grasp on my fashion sense you can imagine the confusion I experienced when the ultrasound tech stated “well, you’re having a boy.” Up until this point I was excited to go shopping for fun-size leggings, tutus and rhinestone tiaras, to coordinate outfits and someday pass down my most prized fashion possessions to my hypothetical daughter and she could say “oh this, it’s vintage. My mom wore it when she freelanced as a bar columnist and met that washed up MTV reality star Pauly D.”  

Okay so maybe she wouldn’t really want that outfit, it wasn’t the most flattering and the shoes pinched the shit out of my heel so I sold them in a mini-auction on Facebook. But I’m sure you’re picking up what I’m laying down here. I didn’t know the first thing about dressing a person of the male variety. Notice how I used the noun “person” rather than baby; at that time I was still in denial that my womb was harvesting an infant but thought instead, a moderately-grown teenager would get up and walk out when he was ready, probably cursing and carrying a 30-pack of Busch Light.  I was even more confused when it seemed like all the garb geared toward baby boys was covered in monkeys, or trucks, and God forbid, sometimes even monkeys driving damn trucks, while the girls racks had ruffles and polka dots and lace. 

I had many a meltdown in which I was convinced that my son would wear only a diaper and one of my dishtowels; at least those were black and void of any offensive pattern.  The people who design baby clothes should really reconsider their design choices when a new mommy has honestly considered buying “baby togas” in the “Household” section at Target.

Then, I was very pregnant and very crazy. Now, I couldn’t be more thankful that the ultrasound tech detected a penis. Had it gone the other way, I’m pretty sure I would be drowning in debt and could probably premier on a crossover episode of Hoarders and My Strange Addiction where I’m featured crying into mountains of tiny dresses and my daughter would most certainly be a frequent runaway. Shopping for baby-Levi’s jeans and manly-but-miniature cardigans can be pretty entertaining and much to Rinn’s dismay, I do occasionally find opportunities to coordinate outfits (see below.)  As far as delegating outfits in my living will, forget it.  In the section where it dictates what I shall be buried in, I’m writing “ALL OF IT.”  

This apple doesn't fall far. 

(Me: tank, Express; skirt, TJMaxx; hair, of my own design. Rinn: onesie, H&M; pants, babyGAP; shoes, Circo.) 



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Jailbreak

I lay Rinn down for a nap. He tries to flex and bust out like some baby Houdini. I lay Rinn down for a nap. He tries to flex and bust out like some baby Houdini. This cycle repeats until he eventually wears himself out and surrenders to sleep and the confines of his crib cage. 

Twitterpated: @RebeccaRinn

Pilot

UrbanDictionary.com defines “Hot Mess” as the following:

“When one’s thoughts or appearances are in a state of pitiful disarray but they maintain an undeniable attractiveness or beauty.” 

While I would beg to differ with the “beauty” part, the rest of the definition appears to be spot on with my current state of affairs.  Add the term “mommy” and things enter a whole new realm of crazy.

Most of you remember my former blog “Someone Put Rum In My Milkshake”, which I abandoned shortly after finding out I was pregnant and having every ounce of wit zapped from my body, an occurrence I felt was a direct correlation with sobriety. Turns out, it was less that I was sober and more that I was pregnant.  Even if I hadn’t become the size of your average two bedroom apartment, pregnancy was never going to be a good look on me. Rather than feeling as though I was growing a mini-me deep within my abdominal cavity, I felt like I was growing rage in its purest form.  As it turns out there was a baby in there and I discovered that my fetus, not rage, was fueled by unhealthy cravings for doughnuts and A&W Root Beer.  

My hostility subsided shortly after our son entered this world; unless you’re my husband, then I stood over your side of the bed holding a pillow just inches above your sleeping face, convincing myself that I had NOT really seen enough episodes of CSI and Law & Order to pull off the perfect murder because you didn’t put your dirty plate in the dishwasher. Postpartum depression wasn’t my thing but postpartum psychosis targeting the one person who allowed me to have our tiny blessing, wasn’t beyond my capabilities. Still, I wasn’t quite convinced picking up where drunk-Rebecca left off was in the best interest of my present offspring.  With real life changes come virtual life changes, enter “Hot Mess Mommy” aka www.hotmessandmom.blogspot.com. The actual domain hotmessmommy.com was already taken by a woman, who at first glance, advocates feeding your child homemade sunbutter (whatever the bleep that is) and zucchini bread.  Seriously?  You can’t be much of any kind of mess if you’re handcrafting your own nutritious version of what appears to be Nutella.  The other option, hotmessmommy.blogspot.com hasn’t updated her blog since 2009.  Shame on her, there should be a law against wasting precious worldwide web resources.  I have real, thoughtful contributions to make to this world via the internet but had to sacrifice my ideal blog name because some “20-something…fabulous, fun, fearless female” (gag) decided to waste everyone’s time at some point back in April of 2009.  I curse you. Fear not however, there are other options, such as hotmessmommy.GOV.  With the implications that my blog is government sanctioned, people will have no choice but to pay attention.

In reality, this blog came to fruition because on an evening where I thought I was mastering the art of multitasking by eating cold, leftover beef stroganoff while reading Rinn his bedtime story as he sat cuddled in my lap, I accidently dropped a spoonful of said stroganoff on his head. What happened next was horrifying, hilarious and an obvious lapse in judgment; I licked his head clean. Literally stuck my tongue out of my mouth and licked day-old entrée off my 6-month-old baby’s bean. Disturbing and primitive, I couldn’t help but feel an increasing desire to share my self-deprecating tale.  After I got over the repulsion of the series of events that just occurred (and gave Rinn a bath); I couldn’t help but toy with the idea that perhaps, while they are no longer raucous accounts of my drunken debauchery, I just might still have tales to tell. Here’s hoping that my journey into first-time motherhood continues to take weird turns and that you all are along for the ride. 

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