Insults and Comebacks for All Occasions

So, I’m doing a giveaway. I promised the good folks at Knock Knock (cutest products evah, btw) I’d have this up a loooong time ago, and silly me, I’ve completely neglected the old blog. Which sucks because this would make a perfectly twisted Valentine’s Day gift …

Here’s the deal. Leave a comment below (if there’s anyone still out there … echo … echo …) and you’ll be entered to win the fabulous little book … Insults and Comebacks for All Occasions.

Here’s how Knock Knock describes it:

“There’s a time and a place for saying what’s really on your mind, and Insults & Comebacks for All Occasions provides the lines necessary for dishing it out. Armed with barbs targeting everything from looks to age to intelligence, you’ll always be prepared with an appropriate—or completely inappropriate—putdown or comeback. With the help of this pocket-sized prompter, your reputation will soon precede you.”

My faves?

“Have you thought about upping the dosage?”

“Baggage is one thing. Steamer trunks are another.”

“I’m visualizing duct tape over your mouth.”

And of course …

“Where’d you hear that — on a blog?”

So, leave a comment, Doogs. If you feel REALLY creative, leave me your best insult or comeback. (Not directed at ME of course. Payback’s a beyotch.)

CONTEST ENDS FEBRUARY 22!

Vampy me oh my.

I’ve turned into a total vampire, and almost completely stopped sleeping at night.

Mommypie! Surely you jest! Au contraire mon frere. It appears that six years of late nights working from home has caught up with me and totally farked my sleep schedule.

Now, I stay up all night, lie down around 4 a.m. to catch a few hours sleep before having to get up and get MP to kindergarten. After dropping her off, I swiftly return home and fall back into bed until sometime after lunch, at which point I have to literally force myself to get up. I SO have to get off this insane schedule and back to some semblance of normalcy.

What do I DO all night? I DO get a ton of work done. (Swap Mamas is now over 5,200 members and between 700,000 and 1 million page views a month! W00t!)

And I bake.

Yessiree, nothin’ says lovin’ like Mommypie from the oven.

Tonight, after warming a loaf of leftover garlic bread and sitting down to watch Twilight for the bazillionth time, the irony of the combo dawned on me.

Oh noooo, the Vamp’s gotta go.

Earl, clean up in aisle nine …

Holy crap. Costco even has a POOL now.

You can drop the kids off and everything.

Now I’m REALLY a coding geek. Is good.

Seriously, WHERE do the days go?

I’ve been surviving on 4 hours of sleep, and I’m not complaining, but sheesh, I wish the tabloids would leave me alone. I swear I didn’t know Tiger was married.

Just checking.

My sleep deprivation isn’t nearly that scandalous, but it IS exciting. I’ve been teaching myself CSS and HTML this past year, and I’ve FINALLY figured out how to write code to clean up the Swap Mamas site design — go check it out! (It really was kind of a hot mess before.) Tell all your friends! Squeee!

Other than that, it’s been all about the Christmas Countdown and a seriously high Sugarplum-crazed 5-year-old. The tree is decorated, the Almond Roca eaten, and two hidden presents already found.

Oooh, and I DO have a fun and slightly crass giveaway for ma Doogs … I’ll post deets in the next few days. Goodness all around!

Sit down, have some plaid.

I joined the hoards of Twilight Moms a few weeks ago and went to see New Moon. Like there was any question I’d miss it. Please.

And I’ll admit, since then, the re-emergence of my Edward Cullen obsession has been … troubling. Not only did I purchase the Twilight DVD so I could watch it the night before New Moon, I’ve watched it … oh … a good seven times since. The other day at Target, I caught myself pausing at a Twilight promotional endcap to fondle the Edward action figure.

Aaaannnd … admitting that makes me nauseous.

Don’t ask me to explain. I can’t. The screenplay leaves out major portions of the book. The acting sucks. I think it even got WORSE in New Moon. Kristen Stewart, in all her angsty-teen glory is 500 times more annoying this go around.

Which is why — HOOOLY HELL — when I saw this for the first time today, I howled.

[In homage to Jacob and the pack.]

Tracking the elusive Thanksgiving Turkeypie.

Happy Thanksgiving, Doogs!

Fairies and glitter, take two.

So, fairies. We’re big into ‘em at The Pie House. Not to mention friendly giants (you can see them sleeping, carved into the mountainside overlooking our house), pots of gold, and all things magical and mystical.

Which brings me to Saturday, and the loss of MP’s second baby tooth. This meant another visit from the Tooth Fairy Saturday night, complete with more bedsheets dusted with silver glitter, and eight shiny quarters placed carefully under her pillow. (I lay down beside her and studied that tiny, beautiful face for what must have been 40 minutes, marveling at how quickly she was growing. She looks so much like her father when she sleeps.)

Sunday, there were many speculations about the Tooth Fairy. Like, when did she sleep? If she had to be in CHINA during the day, and HERE at night, that made no sense. Maybe fairies just DON’T sleep. And was there a fairy exclusively for boys and one for girls? And where did she/they live? MP thinks perhaps it’s in OUR house. Apparently, she hangs out with the Dog Fairy. That would be the one that rides Rosie’s tail and makes her chase it.

The fairy fascination has been around for a few years now — and, fostered by a little creative collaboration between The Boy and me, blossomed this summer during our last humid weeks in Connecticut. Fairy House hunting yielded the following results:

That last one? I like to think of it as the ZZ Top House of Fairies.

So where DO fairies live in the winter? Snow Huts? Igloos? Unless they follow the Fairy Elderly and hightail it to Florida, methinks I’ve got my work cut out.

Of kindergarten, superheros and apple bees.

Holy crap.

SHE LIVES.

It’s clear I’ve been one ginormous phlegmy snot ball of blog suckage. (Colorful AND literal, Mommypie.) It’s been nearly three weeks now of congested, sleep-deprived walking deadness, and I’m close to actually turning the old “turkey-baster up the nose” fantasy into reality.

Whatever. Don’t pretend you’ve never thought about it.

So, I’ve been absent in the blogosphere. Blame it on life. Starting a business. Relationship weirdness. Physical sickness. Sheer lack of time. The thing that REALLY bums me out though, is that I’ve failed to properly document the multitude of momentous happenings in the lightning fast life of MP these past six months.

Like reading her first book, cover to cover, all by herself. Green Eggs and Ham RULES.

The excitement of the first day of kindergarten.

And the day she came running into the house because she discovered this amazing sight.

That night it snowed, and the apples, along with the bees, froze.

Then, Halloween. Is it wrong that I nearly burst with pride, when, for the second year in a row, MP passed over the princess costumes in favor of superhero garb? Last year, Bat Girl. This year, Super Girl. Next year, Oprah? We don’t need no stinkin’ tiaras!

I even failed to get photos of the pumpkins. Which didn’t get carved until Nov. 1. Throwing a couple wigs on each one and calling it a day is apparently only funny for a few weeks.

And then there was the week she came down with the Swine Flu. Which, amazingly, thankfully, MP, my little Asthma-Baby, bounced back from in a matter of days.

And our fox. Who visited throughout the summer and fall, nearly every morning and every night like clockwork. Calm and completely devoid of fear, she’d sit under an apple tree and watch as we went about our business. (I love living here.)

And, arguably, the biggest event of the past few months … MP losing her first tooth. I DID record the first one. Now, the second tooth is loose and primed for the Tooth Fairy’s second visit. I give it two weeks at the most.

It all goes so fast. Today, as I sorted through her outgrown clothes, I couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of sadness. Any worry I had about her childhood passing too quickly, however, all but vanished as I exited her room.

And saw a giant booger smeared on the hallway wall.

*sigh*

The Last Dragonfly

With temps getting down to the single digits at night, and snow on the ground, it’s hard to believe just last week it was warm. That’s the way things are in the Rockies (this part, at least) — one or two weeks of fall at the most. Which doesn’t actually bother me too much — I’m more of a cold-weather mama anyway.

So to celebrate the end of summer, and possibly the last dragonfly of the year, I give you a video taken last week. (Forgive the shoddy camera work — forgot you can’t rotate the camera when it’s in movie mode. Duh.)

Let me preface this by saying MP LOVES bugs. She’ll tell you all about caterpillars and the cocoons they build. That baby grasshoppers don’t have wings. That Rhinoceros Beetles are stronger than any insect or animal on earth. And that kids in Asia keep them as pets. Thankfully we do not live in Asia.

Then there’s the dragonfly. The awesome, beautiful dragonfly. (Did you know they can fly forward AND backward?)

The Tooth Fairy’s first visit to the Pie House.

Last night MP lost her first tooth. HER FIRST TOOTH!

I may or may not have played a role in it falling out …

“Oow, Mommy, you’re brushing too hard!”

<<SNAP>>

<<BLOOD>>

“Did your tooth just come out?!?”

MP spit a wad of blood into her palm (‘atta girl!) and offered me its contents — a perfect pearly pink baby tooth that had been clinging to life by a few gummy threads for DAYS. It was time.

We jumped up and down and, in our PJs, ran to Grammy and Poppy’s in the dark.

We called Bobo and told him the news. We called Uncle Pauly and told HIM the news, too, cutting things short when he told MP the Tooth Fairy usually brought $50 for the first tooth.

“Mommy! Fifty DOLLARS!”

Bastard.

Turns out Uncle Pauly was wrong. Instead, this morning, MP awoke with silver fairy dust sprinkled in her hair and around her pillow, and a crisp TWO dollar bill under her pillow. Oh, and a small bag of jacks and a note from TTF herself.

And the wonder and joy of it all nearly made me cry.

*sigh*

Baby Pie’s growing up.