Bambino Mom

Is your mouth watering? Good. It's all part of my plan...

Ok, so I’ve marinated on this one for a couple months. And after much deliberation about whether I had time to do it, it’s a go. I’m making the time. I’m launching the online bake sale ”Bambino Mom Bakes“ in support of the Great American Bake Sale, a program of Share our Strength.

The bottom line: you can order baked goodies from me. If you’re near by, I’ll deliver. If you’re far away, I’ll ship them. (Yes, many baked goods can be shipped. Your deployed Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Seamen know this better than anyone.)

This could be you. Don't you want cookies in your mailbox? And a square head...?

The very bottom line: your donations are utilized to end childhood hunger in America by 2015.

I will graciously, excitedly and thankfully accept any donation big or small (obviously). But to receive a yummy treater fresh from my oven, a minimum donation will be required. That minimum amount depends on the item you’d like to order. It is listed next to each item.

The Menu (subject to change):

• chocolate chip cookies ($4/2 dozen)
• peanut butter chocolate cake* ($6/9×13)
• sugar cookies ($3/2 dozen)
• peanut butter cookies ($4/2 dozen)
• peanut butter chocolate oatmeal cookies (the no-bake kind, actually. yum) ($4/2 dozen)
• rice crispy treats ($4/9×13)
• trash ($8/a lot)
• special requests and personalizations are always considered

*This legendary delight probably can’t be shipped. If you’re willing to try it, I am. But I can’t make any promises.

So you want to place your order? Here’s what we do:

1. Email me with your order and donation preference.* BambinoMom (at) gmail (dot) com.
2. I’ll confirm your order, give you information on how to donate, and if you’d like them shipped, I’ll tell you the expected shipping cost.
3. Next: I bake. You go about business as usual.
4. Finally: I deliver. You eat and be happy. And you feel good because your donation is filling other tummies up too.

*You can donate directly to my “team” page - which currently consists of a team of one - or we can work through PayPal. Details via email.

NOTE: If you donate through the team page, be sure not to make it an anonymous donation. I need to be able to confirm that you’ve contributed to the cause. Otherwise, I would be donating baked goods to you for free. And that’s not what this is about.

You cookie monsters...

If you don’t want to order a lot of trash all for yourself (don’t let the name scare you, it’s the most delicious concoction ever…), keep these good prices in support of a great cause in mind for your next shindig, work event, birthday party, retirement party, etc. Who doesn’t love homemade desserts? If they turn out alright, you’re welcome to take all the credit.

I’m so excited to start receiving orders, baking for you, and raising money to end childhood hunger. Please share this with someone who likes sweet things. Or someone who wants kids in need to have full bellies instead of empty ones.

Last but not least, if you’re interested in joining my team, I’m flattered. Really. But I work better alone.

Oh, Alan.

JUST KIDDING. I would love for my one man wolf pack to grow. You don’t have to do it online, either. We can actually get crazy and host a bake sale in the real world, too. Email me, and we’ll talk deets (which apparently is the new term that means details… I’m still debating how I feel about that one).

This is my home. (I’m no architect, so don’t take this as a literal rendition, but I have included the highlights.)

You get the idea, right? A lot of time went into this one...

So the only thing harder than running from the first floor to the third to help A find his binki is coming from the third to the first to get out the door with A in my arms.

Side note - Aidan outgrew his first carseat. You know the one with the helpful carrying handle and harness so you can contain him while trying to get out the door, and you don’t have to put him in and take him out of his carseat in the car while he’s sleeping. A word of advice to my first-time mommy-to-be’s: if you’re going with a Chicco Keyfit, make sure it’s a Keyfit 30. 30 means 30 pounds is the limit (as opposed to 22). Hindsight’s 20/20.

Since we no longer have the luxury of keeping Aidan contained as we scramble to pack the car with all required items (stroller, spare binkis, food, changes of clothes, burp clothes, diapers, wipes, entertaining toys… to scratch the surface), getting out the door has become a lot more challenging. And that’s if we don’t have anything else to carry.

But we always have something else to carry.

Like today, when I went to the grocery store. That should be easy, right? Wrong. To the above list add eco-friendly reusable bags, a shopping cart cover (so Aidan doesn’t pick up the feces particles commonly found on a cart handle while chewing on it), and a strategically draped blanket over Aidan’s head (because who can carry an umbrella with all this other crap in your hands?).

I like to think of myself as the Rachel Ray of motherhood.

I’ll be honest. The real root of the issue is my stubborn, no-really!, I-got-this attitude. I’m just trying to prove to myself that I can do it. And I hate having to take multiple trips up and down the stairs. But most times, I don’t got it, and I end up running back upstairs with A on my hip to get a binki or a blanket or my wallet.

Why isn’t my wallet in my purse already, you ask? Because I long ago shed the extra weight of a purse to regain the valuable shoulder real estate it requires.

And when Maddy comes with us (which is pretty common, actually), it gets even worse. Just last week, Aidan – sitting quietly in his stroller waiting for me to get Maddy’s crap together and out the door with us - was nearly blown off the sidewalk by a gust of wind. I literally made a diving save to pull the stroller from the edge. Whew.

Then I wondered how many people in my neighborhood were looking out their windows, laughing at me. And/or judging me.

Ahhh, parenthood.

Yet another word of advice to my first-time mommy-to-be’s: The bigger the diaper bag, the better. When you think you’ve found the right size, go a size up. Or two. Thank me later.

So the biggest and best thing happening recently is this:

He’s not quite stable yet, as you can see here:

In other news, it turns out that no consecutive sleep because your 7 month old baby still wakes up to eat twice a night = migraines. With spots in the eyes. Bleh. So we’re working on that.

And last, but not least, I was busy defending the nation one public affairs crisis at a time this weekend. But instead of the usual pack-Aidan,-Maddy,-Daddy,-and-Mommy-up-to-go-to-Grandma-America’s-and-Clampa’s-for-the-weekend… (I’ll give you a second to recover from all those hyphens. K, ready?) I went alone. I left Aidan in the very capable hands of Daddy – they had a boys weekend.

That means it was the first night – actually two nights – that I was away from baby A. Weird. It was so weird in fact, that on the way down there, 25 minutes into the car ride, I was feeling crazy! Like, turn-up-this-jam-that-isn’t-Adele-and-open-the-sun-roof,-my-hair-is-on-fire crazy.

Don’t get me wrong. I was still in bed by 9:30 each night. I wasn’t that crazy. I had migraines to prevent. But I did celebrate Cinco de Mayo with my sister over fajitas and a Dos Equis. Yeah, it blew up my diet, but I had reason to celebrate.

This C-section-recovered, cholesterol-scare, Fit-Mom-dedicated, Biggest-Loser-obsessed mama passed her Air Force Physical Fitness Test. The new one. The supposedly more difficult one. And so far, I’ve lost 10 pounds. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. (But don’t really. Smoking is bad.)

Leave me a comment! I love comments. Tell me your latest accomplishments.

This has been a long time coming, sharing this with the interwebs. Here goes…

I was 22, newly engaged, planning the wedding, finishing up a good-paying summer job, and heading into my final year of college. Each of these facts alone are something to be celebrated. Together, they were apparently a recipe for disaster.

What I later found out was something to the effect that all changes in your life, good or bad, register in your mind as stress. So even when you’re experiencing some of the greatest times in your life, your mind can register it as stress.

I got off work early because I was feeling a little “off” and wanted to stop by to see the doctor. On the way home, I was on the phone with my mom.

The gist of the conversation:

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I just feel weird…”

“How so, can you explain your symptoms?”

“Well I have tingling in my fingers… and some shooting pain in my arms… and now some tingling in my toes… and pain in my leg… oh my god, my mouth is tingling. What’s happening Mom? What is this?”

“Honey, pull over. Maybe you just need to pull over and breathe.”

“Okay… oh my god, Mom it’s getting worse. I have to go. I have to call 911.”

So I did just that. Pulled over and called 911. But not before I pretty much spazzed out in the middle of I-495 while driving, and waving frantically at the passers-by while honking my horn and flailing my arms. What was I actually expecting them to do? We were all driving…

It looked something like this:

I probably wasn't driving as well as usual...

(It’s okay. You can laugh. My sister and I still do, in retrospect.)

But seriously. I thought I was having a heart attack. I mean tingling, pain, difficulty breathing. Oh, it was bad. And by the grace of God, there was a nurse already on the side of the road. She’d pulled over because she lost something off her car that she was looking for. She talked to the 911 people. And if it hadn’t been for her, I’d probably have passed out.

A ride in the ambulance and several EKGs later (during subsequent “episodes”), they cleared me. No heart attack. No heart issues at all. Just panic.

I didn’t believe it. How did I watch my heart rate sky-rocket on the monitor several times when I was just sitting there, seemingly not panicked? There had to be some physical explanation. But there wasn’t. Just a panic attack. From stress.

That weekend, my bff (and helpful bridesmaid) and I were going to check out a potential venue in New York. Something to look forward to. Something to be excited about. And I was! So you can imagine my shock when I fell prey to yet another attack at the foot of the Francis Scott Key Bridge:

Again, I was driving. So, what did I do? I held hands with my friend (more like death-gripped her hand), and tried to breathe. I made it to the other side, but not without the tinglies everywhere and the light-headedness typically associated with hyperventilation.

And as fate would have it, our trip would include a few more bridges. Naturally.

But with a good friend, an increasing ability to focus on breathing, and a fresh prescription of Xanax, we arrived safely. And this new-found fear of bridges did not hold me down.

It went on for a year like this, not knowing what would provoke an attack (although bridges were now a certainty). I carried my prescription everywhere, more or less as a security blanket.

In fact, at my own wedding, 45 minutes into the pictures after the ceremony, I started to feel one coming on. Right before this photo was shot, I told Ozgur I was about to have one (as you can see by the expression on his face):

Some of my favorite people...

I mean, here I am surrounded by our closest friends and family, our bridal party. And anxiety is setting in. I’ve come to learn I don’t always do well with having to put on a show in front of big groups of people. I’m more of a t-shirt and flip-flops kind of girl, so this was definitely not my element.

Luckily, the photo shoot was wrapping up, and getting to the relaxing part of dancing and eating good food calmed my nerves considerably…

The craziest part is, the panic attacks have all but disappeared. *Knock on wood.* That year of never knowing when they would come was so difficult. But once I learned how to handle them (deep breathing, keeping xanax on my person at all times, and adjusting to the symptoms that come with it), it was as if they lost their power over me and gave up… found someone new to prey on. Sorry, new someone.

But lucky me. That was the most emotional year of my life. Yes – even more than when I was pregnant.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words… (especially when you can use cartoon talking bubbles):

It's time to go home.

You think this is a handful? It gets better:

I'm getting pretty good at multi-tasking.

I can’t wait until my custom shirts arrive. On the bright side, if we’re out walking, it’s probably a beautiful day.

And yes, I’m getting very good at using MS Paint. Maybe I should be a cartoonist?

I’m making this t-shirt. In fact, I’m going to make five of them in different color combos for each day of the week. And I’m going to wear it every time I go on a walk with Aidan and Maddy (which is at least once a day, more often twice).

Email me at bambinomom (at) gmail (dot) com to place your own order.

Call it anti-social, passive-aggressive, I don’t care. Call it what you will. I’m tired of talking to strangers for 20 minutes.

Don’t you see I’ve got my Fuelband on? I’m trying to hit my goal for the day! Besides that, Aidan has a short window of opportunity in which he’ll ride in the stroller without protest. And while I’m on my soap box, you’re messing up my puppy’s training when you tell her to jump on you and lick your face. We don’t do that at my house.

Too harsh? Probably. But I assimilate it to the stranger-on-the-airplane situation. When you walk past a random stranger on a sidewalk, you are forced to come into close proximity. At which point, they make their move. You’re trapped. The stroller isn’t yet capable of four-wheeling through the grass to get away, and Maddy is a sucker for attention.

Example: today, Jane Doe cornered me. And we were just steps away from our neighborhood. I learned that her mother and her mother’s dog are both dead, she has two boxers of her own, her nephew – 17 years old now – was always protected (and bathed) by her former dog when her nephew was a baby, the dog was eating grass today because her dog-friend was too, she also has a cat, etc. etc. etc.

And do you know what Jane Doe knows about us? She knows Maddy’s a puppy and Aidan is 7 months old.

Apparently I’m a better listener than I am a talker (although, I’m sure Ozgur would have something to say about that).

But this t-shirt has me covered now. Next time a stranger approaches me, I’ll just dig my heels into that power walk, get my pony tail a’ swingin’, point to my shirt, smile, wave, and keep on keepin’ on.

That way, I can focus on important things, like updating you on the status of the sleeping squirrel:

Yep. He's definitely sleeping.

No, I did not roll him over. I’m not interested in contracting squirrel flu. But I do think he looks a little better than the other day. He seems to be recovering!

Readers, this post is not for those with a weak stomach or a particularly tender heart. I’m warning you now: it contains a picture of a dead squirrel. Yes, a dead squirrel. (Don’t worry, it’s not gory. It’s just dead.)

Turn back now if you don’t want to see it.

If you’ve scrolled this far, I can only assume you’ve consented to viewing the material.

Poor thing. He looks so peaceful...

It was so bizarre. He was just laying there on the sidewalk. Dead like that. It really got me wondering what happened to him.

And here’s my hypothesis: he found an old 40oz malt liquor on the side of the road, had a few too many sips of the remnants, got a little too much liquid courage, and went and played on this thing:

It was a pretty tall lamp post...

Only just now, as I’m putting this post together, am I reminded of a similar incident from my childhood. (Yes, this post was just going to be me sharing this dead squirrel hypothesis with you. But then… THEN…)

My sister (maybe 13 or 14 at the time) was  helping my dad bring wood in for the fire, and she saw a similar squirrel situation. It was just laying there under a tree, completely still, no wounds or anything, all rigor mortised.

“Dad, what’s wrong with that squirrel, is it dead?” she said.

He took one look at the squirrel and knew. And this was his response… “No honey! It’s not dead. He’s just sleeping!”

In the years after, we all laughed at my Dad’s blatant white lie, told only to protect her potentially very tender heart. And when we turn to our family in times when we really need to hear the truth, we say…

“Tell me the truth. The squirrel is dead.”

Editor’s note: This is from last week, but I forgot to post it on my busy Friday. Enjoy.

I’m typing this on my cell phone keyboard because I have a case of the insomnies, so I intend to keep this brief. And don’t hold typos against me.

Let ‘s take a moment to note the journey that is having a dog, and the even crazier journey that is having a child. But last night, Maddy takes the crazy cake. Yes, she out-did our unpredictable, world-revolves-around-me, complex human baby. And here’s how…

A woke up as per usual around 4am to grub. Unlike normal people, though, he screams almost inconsolably until a bottle is in his mouth. So I bust out all the super mom tricks I know, and just when he can’t take it anymore, Dad arrives with the milk. (And that’s not even the heroic part.)

But he looks pissed. In the time it took for him to go downstairs and make a bottle, something has gone seriously awry. And we’re not talking the usual 4am don’t-talk-to-me look. This is a kill face.

“Maddy shit in her kennel.”

(You don’t want an MS Paint of this. Trust me.)

1. Words are never exchanged in the middle-of-the-night feedings, so to hear a voice at this hour was weird.

2. That sucks bad. Even when I offer, he refuses to let me clean her kennel (she has had a few other diarrhea situations in the past). Which is nice on one hand, but on the other, I just keep feeling more bad each time he has to clean it.

3. It’s 4:20am. And the kennel isn’t the only thing that will need a bath.

To top it all off, post-cleaning, he attempted to sleep on the couch for the rest of the morning incase she had to go again. And she whined because he was there, and she didn’t have to go even though he took her out three more times, and she essentially worked really hard so that he didn’t get anymore sleep before work.

Poor, sleepy, heroic Ozgur. I can’t imagine doing it all without you.

I’m happy to report improvement with Maddy’s sitch.

But I’m even happier to have a husband who gets shit done. In this and so many other ways.

So I’ve recently entertained the idea of returning to work part-time. That would mean three days a week. And because it wouldn’t be full-time child care, we could afford a nanny so we don’t have to spend time going to and from daycare on the days I work. Which means more time playing and eating together… what we do best!

But I’m torn.

Maybe I can get the answer by analyzing the uniform of the day... No, that's pretty unfair. I mean who wouldn't choose velour pants and flip flops?

Part of me thinks it’s a cool idea. Having an employer contribute to your 401k and/or IRA is never a bad thing. And aside from that, I actually like the work I do… writing, strategic communications, etc. It exercises a part of my brain that I like to use. Crave to use. Miss using.

But the other part of me is like, “Are you crazy girl? You’ll never get this time back. You rock at taking care of A. And who wants another stress in their life? Something else they have to juggle, balance, etc.?” As I write this, his little sleeping body lays snuggled up next to me. You can’t beat that.

But if I did go back to work for three days of the week, I’d still be spending the majority of the week with him. And I’d have an outlet for my untamed brain, and my outspoken mouth.

… But will anyone care for him like I do? Like family does? Would I be crazy to use a nanny cam – a neurotic mother’s security blanket?

How do you know which way is the way to go? Honestly, depending on the day, I can convince myself of either. Then, the next day, I change my mind. I’m like a flip-flopping politician. And much like a lot of politics, I’m clearly undecided on this issue as well.

I suppose this decision is not unlike many other life decisions. I mean, my life will be what I make of it no matter which path I choose.

Sigh. I thought writing about it would bring me closer to one side or the other. It hasn’t.

Please feel free to leave advice on making life decisions in the comments. I could use the insight.